Simple and effective gas chromatographic mass spectrometric procedure for the speciation analysis of organotin compounds in specimens of marine mussels. An evaluation of the organotin pollution of the Lagoon of Venice

This paper describes a simple, effective analytical procedure, based on a g as chromatographic mass spectrometric technique, for the speciation analysi s of organotin compounds (OTC) in mussel samples. The direct alkylation rea ction of the organotin chlorides in the aqueous digestion solution by NaBEt 4 allowed a short analysis time and a good recovery. The evaluation of the yield of each step constituting the analytical procedure indicated that the alkylation step is the most-critical one, The proposed method was advantag eously utilised to monitor the level of OTC pollution:of the Lagoon of Veni ce. All the sites examined, both near to and far from anthropogenic activit ies, revealed significant levels of OTC pollution. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.