Polybrominated diphenyl ethers and hexabromocyclododecane in sediment and fish from a Swedish River

Fish and sediments from several places along the Swedish River Viskan, sampled in 1995, were analyzed for polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD). The samples were collected up‐ and downstream from several possible point sources (textile industries) for these compounds. Tetrabromodiphenyl ethers (TeBDEs), pentabromodiphenyl ethers (PeBDEs), and decabromodiphenyl ether (DeBDE [BDE209]) were found in sediment. Tetrabromodiphenyl ethers and PeBDEs were also found in fish. Hexabromocyclododecane was identified in sediment and fish. Large fish to sediment ratios for TeBDE, PeBDEs, and HBCD indicate that these are highly bioavailable, whereas BDE209 seems not to be as bioavailable. The lowest PBDE and HBCD levels were found upstream of the industries and concentrations generally increased progressively further downstream as more industries were passed. This is in agreement with earlier investigations of PBDEs in fish from the same river. Many brominated compounds are photolabile, which can complicate their analysis. Under the conditions used in this investigation it was observed that BDE209 in a solvent that was subject to the clean‐up procedure partly decomposed to compounds with shorter retention times, whereas BDE209 seemed to be stable in the sample extracts. Another matrix effect could be observed in the increased sensitivity obtained for some of the investigated compounds in fish and sediment extracts as compared to standard solutions. This effect may obscure analytical results obtained with electron capture mass spectrometric detections.