DIN EN 16167:2012-11

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) have been widely used as additives in industrial applications where chemical stability has been required. This stability on the other hand creates environmental problems when PCBs are eventually released into the environment. Since some of these PCB compounds are highly toxic, their presence in the environment (air, water, soil, sediment and waste) is regularly monitored and controlled. At present, determination of PCB is carried out in these matrices in most of the routine laboratories following the preceding steps for sampling, pretreatment, extraction, clean-up by measurement of specific PCB by means of gas chromatography in combination with mass spectrometric detection (GC-MS) or gas chromatography with electron capture detector (GC-ECD). This European Standard was developed in the European project "Horizontal". It is the result of a desk study "3-12 PCB" and aims at evaluation of the latest developments in assessing PCBs in sludge, soil, treated biowaste and neighbouring fields. Taking into account the different matrices and possible interfering compounds, this standard does not contain one single possible way of working. Several choices are possible, in particular relating to clean-up. Detection with both MS-detection and ECD-detection is possible. Two different extraction procedures and 11 clean-up procedures are described. The use of internal and injection standards is described in order to have an internal check on choice of the extraction and cleanup procedure. This method is as far as possible in agreement with the method described for PAHs (see EN 16181). It has been tested for ruggedness. The committee responsible for this standard is NA 119-01-02-02 UA "Chemische und physikalische Verfahren" ("Chemical and physical processes") at DIN.