THEORETICAL CONSIDERATION OF THE STRUCTURAL VARIETY IN THE TOXAPHENE MIXTURE TAKING INTO ACCOUNT RECENT EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

There are still wide differences in the number of congeners estimated and measured for the insecticidal toxaphene mixture. Purely theoretica l considerations are not very helpful, since compounds with the most u nlikely Cl substitution are counted and included just like those that are known and already isolated. Counting the substances with the aid o f a high resolution GC-MS system can, aside from the errors that are i nvolved, not provide any structural information except whether the com pounds are saturated or unsaturated. For this reason it is not known w hat chlorine substitutions are possible for the bornanes and according ly which are present in the mixture. Recent results on the isolation a nd structural elucidation of 27 congeners form the basis for postulate s made in this contribution concerning the structure of chlorinated bo rnanes and a calculation of the number of significant toxaphene compon ents. This allows a concrete picture to be formed of this class of sub stance.