A Purification Method for 10 Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers in Soil Using Accelerated Solvent Extraction-Solid Phase Extraction

An optimized method was established for the determination of 10 polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in soil using gas chromatography coupled with electron capture detector (GC-ECD). Accelerated solvent extraction (ASE) was used to extract 10 PBDEs from soil and a comparative study on 4 kinds of extraction systems (i-hexane, i-hexane-acetone (4:1, V/V) n-hexane-acetone (1:1, V/V), n-hexane-dichloromethane (1:1, V/V)) was conducted to obtain an optimal extraction effect of PBDEs. The purification of 10 PBDEs in soil solution was completed by solid phase extraction (SPE). Ten kinds of SPE columns with different filters were applied to the purification process. The optimized conditions were acquired using the extraction system of n-hexane-acetone (4:1, V/V) and purification with acid silica gel column. Under the optimized conditions, the average recoveries of 10 PBDEs in soil ranged from 85.4% to 103.1% with the RSDs of 1.7%–4.6%. Method detection limits (MDLs) were 0.04–0.22 ng mL−1. The method was simple, rapid and efficient, and quite feasible for the determination of the 10 PBDEs in contaminated soil.