ISOMER-SELECT AND ENANTIOMER-SELECTIVE ANALYSES OF TOXAPHENE COMPONENTS USING CHIRAL HIGH-RESOLUTION GAS-CHROMATOGRAPHY AND DETECTION BY MASS-SPECTROMETRY

Achiral and chiral high-resolution gas chromatography (HRGC) in combin ation with electron ionization (EI) mass spectrometry/mass spectrometr y (MS/MS) was used for the analysis of toxaphene components in a techn ical mixture and in tissue extracts of several aquatic vertebrate spec ies collected from the Baltic Sea (herring, salmon, seal), the Arctic (seal), and the Antarctic (penguin). Enhanced isomer selectivity of so me toxaphene components was obtained by selected-reaction monitoring ( SRM) using ion transitions commonly not observed with other halogenate d contaminants. All species showed extensive alteration of the origina l toxaphene mixture with only a few, but largely the same, polychlorob ornanes present. Using chiral HRGC, the enantiomer resolution of sever al major toxaphene components was achieved. Analysis of the technical mixture revealed racemic or nearly racemic mixtures of these compounds , and analysis of the aquatic species showed some changes in enantiome ric composition for some components. However, the enantiomeric composi tion of the most accumulating nonachlorobornane, TOX9, was not much di fferent in all the species, indicating little if any biological degrad ation of this component.