Solvent-saving approaches for the extraction of siloxanes from pine needles, soils and passive air samplers

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2016

Authors

Sara Ramos (Author) FEUP; José Silva (Author) FEUP; Vera Homem (Author) FEUP; Alessandra Cincinelli (Author) Other; Lúcia Silveira Santos (Author) FEUP; Maria Arminda Alves (Author) FEUP; Nuno Ratola (Author) FEUP

Journal

Title: Analytical Methods

Vol. 8 No. 27

Pages: 5378-5387

ISSN: 1759-9660

Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 6 Citations

ISI Web of Science

Scopus - 9 Citations

Scientific classification

FOS: Engineering and technology

Associated Projects

LEPABE - Laboratório de Engenharia de Processos, Ambiente, Biotecnologia e Energia

LEPAE/CEFT - RL2 - (Bio) Chemical Engineering: Multi-Scale Approaches for Sustainable Environment and Health

SILOQUEST - SILOQUEST - Como se comportam os siloxanos no meio ambiente?

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-00K-N5M

DOI: 10.1039/c6ay00506c

Abstract (EN): In this study, a solvent-saving analytical strategy was validated to quantify the levels of 8 volatile methyl siloxanes (VMSs) in pine needles, soils and air (measured by sorbent-impregnated polyurethane foam passive samplers, SIPs). Different extraction solvents and sample handling procedures were tested and the protocol that reached the highest recoveries employed QuEChERS (Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged, and Safe) and was adapted to pine needles and soils. For SIPs, another method was developed in parallel, as QuEChERS could not be applied to this matrix due to logistic and operative constraints. Thus, extraction was performed using classic Soxhlet extractors and a short clean-up step, limited to the removal of water by a solid-phase extraction (SPE) column containing sodium sulphate. The quantification of the target compounds was performed by gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy (GC/MS), with identical set-ups for the three matrices. Similar validation protocols were applied and yielded limits of detection (LODs) from 1.8 to 10.8 ng kg(-1) (dry weight) for pine needles, from 3.4 to 19.8 ng kg(-1) (dw) for soils and from 4.7 to 10.2 ng(SIP)(-1) (dw) for SIPs. The overall mean recoveries were 75 +/- 11%, 69 +/- 17% and 87 +/- 8%, respectively. The application of the methodologies to naturally contaminated samples collected in an urban and a remote site revealed siloxane levels comparable to other studies in the literature and a predominance of the cyclic siloxanes over the linear ones, which were frequently not detected.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 10