Determination of polychlorinated biphenyls in sediment by on‐line narrow‐bore column liquid chromatography/capillary gas chromatography

Abstract

Abstract Narrow‐bore column liquid chromatography coupled on‐line with capillary gas chromatography (LC/GC) is used for the determination of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in sediment via a heart‐cutting technique. This method is compared with a method in which two off‐line column clean‐up steps are used with subsequent analysis by capillary gas chromatography. For the LC/GC analysis the recovery of PCBs was 90–100%. For two sediment samples from the river Meuse the LC/GC and the other, more laborious method showed good agreement.