THE ISOLATION OF CHLORINATED PESTICIDES AND POLYCHLORINATED BIPHENYLS IN SPECIMENS OF HUMAN LIVER AND OTHER BIOLOGICAL MATERIALS

The potentially harmful effects of chlorinated pesticides and chlorinated biphenyls to the environment and Human health make the ability to determine the concentration levels of these pollutants in specimens extremely important. The technique of choice for the analysis is capillary gas chromatography with an electron capture detector. The detector is, however, easily fouled by interfering components such as lipids or lipophilic materials ever present in biological specimens. This thesis presents methodology capable of isolating the analytes of interest from the interfering components and, in addition, separates the chlorinated pesticides and PCB. The methodology developed utilized high performance gel permeation chromatography to effect the initial isolation and an aminosilane column to separate the chlorinated pesticide and PCB fractions. Data is presented comparing the analysis of Human liver specimens utilizing the new methodology with the more classical Florisil cleanup procedure.