Analysis of polychlorodibenzo‐p‐dioxins and polychlorodibenzofurans in stationary source emissions in GC–MS/MS using hydrogen as the carrier gas

The European and American methods for the determination of polychlorodibenzo‐p‐dioxins and polychlorodibenzofurans in stationary source emissions require a high‐resolution mass spectrometer detector. At the same time, all of the 17 toxic 2,3,7,8‐chlorine‐substituted isomers have to be separated by an appropriate chromatographic method. The resulting analysis has long runtimes and sometimes a double‐column run is needed, which results in a huge waste of time, money and manual labor. To obtain a fast and cost‐effective but still reliable analytical system, a single‐column gas chromatography with hydrogen as carrier gas and tandem mass spectrometry detection is proposed. The use of hydrogen as the carrier gas is a good choice to shorten runtimes and improve the chromatographic resolution, while tandem mass spectrometry is a well‐known alternative for this analysis. All the chromatographic and mass spectrometric parameters fill the requirements of the reference methods with a 35% reduction of runtimes. The accuracy is tested with three fly ash samples of a proficiency interlaboratory test. A good correlation between the results is obtained (R2 = 0.992, slope = 0.9675), and no coelutions are noted. The system robustness is tested during 5 years of constant use and the maximal relative standard deviation of the relative response factor is 18.8%.