Evaluation of XAD-2 for Multiresidue Extraction of Organochlorine Pesticides and Polychlorinated Biphenyls from Natural Waters

Abstract

The Amberlite polymeric resin, XAD-2, was evaluated for multiresidue extraction of ng/L levels of several organochlorine pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from fortified distilled water and from fortified and unfortified natural waters. Recoveries from 1 L distilled water samples fortified with 10—100 ng of 10 organochlorine pesticides averaged 96%. Recoveries averaged 85% for XAD-2 resin extraction of fortified natural samples collected from across Canada. Unfortified control samples contained no detectable levels of any of the pesticides used in the fortification. The resin is not suitable for extracting Mirex from natural water; only about 50% of added Mirex was recovered. Recoveries of PCBs from 2 L natural water samples, fortified with 250 ng PCBs/L and corrected for losses on the silica gel fractionation column and apparent PCB content of the control samples, ranged from 78 to 86%. Blanks for the resin extraction procedure were very low, averaging 4 ng PCBs/L.