Determination of Pentachlorophenol and its Hydrocarbon Solvent in Wood, Soil, and Water by Gas Chromatography and FT-IR Spectroscopy in a Single-Sample Treatment

Abstract

This analytical method offers a new way of measuring pentachlorophenol (PCP) in soil, wood, and water samples by gas chromatography and its hydrocarbon solvent by FT-IR spectroscopy. The distinctive feature of this method is that both the PCP and the oil are extracted from a single 1-g sample. They are first extracted from the wood or soil samples with a 1:1 mixture of Freon 113 and methanol using ultrasonication. An aliquot of the resulting organic phase is then added to an aqueous phase buffered at pH 9.2 with Na2HPC>4. The oil remaining in the organic phase is analyzed by FT-IR, whereas the PCP in the aqueous phase is acetylated by reaction with acetic anhydride, back-extracted in Freon 113, and injected into the gas chromatograph. Low-PCP-content water samples (<5 //g/L) are acidified and extracted in Freon 113, which is then added to the aqueous phase. High-PCP-content water samples (>5 µ g/L) are buffered and treated as the buffered aqueous phase. Extraction recoveries for the different matrices range from 94 to 115%. The absolute detection limits (3 ) for PCP and the hydrocarbon solvent are respectively 28 ng and 0.1 mg for a 1-g solid sample or a 100-mL volume of water sample. The PCP content of wood samples was compared with that obtained by neutron activation analysis and correlated with a 0.97 coefficient. The precision of the analytical method is better than 10% for both analytes. This analytical approach was successfully applied to the radial characterization of freshly treated poles for their PCP and oil contents.Pentachlorophenol (PCP) is widely used as a biocide in the wood preservation industry.* 1 It is dissolved in a hydrocarbon solvent such as oil and pressure-injected in the wood. The biocide-oil solution is present in the wood but also in the soil or water in the vicinity of wood-treatment plants. Also, it migrates out of the wood poles used by telephone companies and electrical utilities. In response to the environmental problems this creates, predictive software for evaluating the behavior of PCP and oil migrating from wood poles to the environment is under development at Hydro-Québec.

Non-Destructive Detection of Pentachlorophenol Residues in Historical Wooden Objects

“…For model wood samples with a PCP concentration of 90 mg/kg, the average extraction recovery was (84 ± 11)% with acetone and (66 ± 5)% with the mixture of acetone and H 2 SO 4 (1:1) combined with SPE. The extraction recoveries were comparable to those reported in the literature, where PCP recoveries from wood with different solvent systems ranged 60-100% [44], 75-90% [38], 82-98% [48], or above 98% [17].…”

“…Two extraction solvents were tested on model wood samples: pure acetone and a 1:1 mixture of acetone and 1 M H 2 SO 4 (the solvents were selected based on literature [ 17 , 48 ]). The procedure with acid included an additional SPE clean-up step that was optimized separately using aqueous solutions with low concentrations (0.1–0.4 mg/L) of PCP (resulting in average SPE recoveries of (112 ± 12)%).…”

“…In various wood samples, PCP has been most commonly determined by solvent extraction and chromatographic analysis [ 17 , 38 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 ], resulting in low detection limits due to preconcentration. Such methods are destructive, but have been used on wooden art objects in Belgium [ 51 ] and Germany [ 22 ], where small fragments were removed for analysis.…”

Photocatalytic degradation of textile dye X-3B using polyoxometalate–TiO2 hybrid materials

“…Various methods have been used to degrade or remove these contaminates by physical, chemical, photochemical and microbiological process [2,3]. Semiconductors (TiO 2 , ZnO, Fe 2 O 3 , SnO 2 , WO 3 , etc.)…”

Selective chemical oxidation or reduction of chlorophenols with potassium nitrosodisulfonate

“…1 Many of these compounds are present in waste waters from petrochemical, coal tar, plastic and pesticidal chemical industries, which produce them as chemical intermediates or generate them during chlorination of effluents containing phenolic compounds. [2][3][4] Industrial waste waters are not the only source of chlorophenols. They could be present in domestic waters since they are widely used as pesticides, desinfectants and antiseptics.…”