QUANTITATIVE-DETERMINATION OF TOTAL MOLAR CONCENTRATIONS OF BIOACCUMULATABLE ORGANIC MICROPOLLUTANTS IN WATER USING C-18 EMPORE DISK AND MOLAR DETECTION TECHNIQUES

A highly sensitive and quantitative group parameter to determine total molar concentrations of organic micropollutants that can bioaccumulat e in the lipid phase of aquatic organisms from effluents, surface mate r, and drinking water has been developed. C-18 empore disk was used as a surrogate lipid phase, The partition process between water and C-18 empore disk was employed to simulate the bioaccumulation process, Aft er partition extraction of the water sample, the empore disk was extra cted with cyclohexane, and total molar concentrations were determined in these extracts using vapor pressure osmometry (VPO) and gas chromat ography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS), respectively. Total molar concentra tions bioaccumulated in aquatic biota were estimated from the cyclohex ane concentrations. Good accuracy for the total molar determination wa s obtained using VPO, due to the practically constant molar response f actors (43.1 +/- 1.7 V/M) for a wide compound range and to excellent a dditivity of individual compound responses, Satisfying reproducibility (0-8.3%) of VPO was obtained for sample extracts, The detection limit . of VPO in cyclohexane extracts corresponded to 0.60 mM in the lipid phase of aquatic biota, A minimal separation GC/MS system was develope d, which enabled highly sensitive and sufficiently accurate total mola r determinations. The reproducibility of the GC/MS determination for s amples ranged from 0.7 to 22%. The detection limit of GC/MS in cyclohe xane extracts corresponded to 0.044 mM in the lipid phase, The determi ned total molar concentrations in the lipid phase of aquatic biota wer e in the range of 0.139-168 mM for effluents, 0.26-1.34 mM for surface water systems, and < 0.044 mM for drinking water.