PCB Standards and Standard Mixtures

From their first commercial use in the 1920s, it is estimated that over 1,500,000 tons (1.5 × 1021) of PCBs were produced worldwide. PCBs were banned from production from most countries in the 1970s, though large-scale contamination of the environment remains a problem today. In 2001, PCBs were included in the original Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.

CIL offers more than 50 individual 13C-labeled PCB standards to meet the growing needs of researchers utilizing isotope dilution mass spectrometry (IDMS). All 13C-labeled PCB standards are quantified against CIL-certified unlabeled PCB standards for utmost precision and accuracy.

Related Resources

➤ Standards for Environmental, Food, Water, and Human Exposure Analysis
➤ US EPA Method 1628

Dioxins, Furans, and Polychlorinated Biphenyls

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PCB Nomenclature

In recent years, interest in PCB testing has centered around two different but related groups of congeners, one group based on congeners most commonly found in technical PCB products and thus in the environment, and another based on toxicity. To help researchers more easily find the products they need, PCB standards and standard mixtures have been categorized by these two groups: “WHO Dioxin-Like PCBs” – compounds that demonstrate dioxin-like activity and have been given toxic equivalence factors (TEFs) by the World Health Organization (WHO); and “WHO Non-Dioxin-Like (Marker/Indicator) PCBs” – compounds that are found in the highest concentrations in technical products and the environment, but have not been given TEFs by the WHO. Please note that CIL also offers a set of standard mixtures developed for the combined analysis of both groups. Look to CIL for even more developments in this area as we continue to work toward meeting the complete needs of researchers in environmental, food, water, and exposure analysis.

High-Purity PCB Standards

CIL responds to the needs of the analytical community by providing high-purity PCB standards. As new instrumentation and methodologies drive detection limits lower, the presence of even very low levels of impurities in the labeled standards of other PCB congeners or polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) becomes a hindrance to a laboratory’s minimum-detection capabilities. CIL has developed aggressive cleanup procedures and adopted much tighter quality-control specifications for the eight mono-ortho-substituted dioxin-like PCBs (DL-PCBs). These new specifications include extremely low allowances for 13C-non-ortho DL-PCBs, native content, other PCB congeners and PCDD/Fs.

Comprehensive Native PCB Standards

CIL has produced a new calibration series and spiking solutions to go along with its two large mixes of unlabeled PCBs formulated entirely from its PCB certified standards individual stock solutions. The Comprehensive PCB Mixtures include all the WHO dioxin-like PCBs that have been assigned TEFs, the predominant congeners, and first- and last-eluting congeners from the mono-through-deca homologue groups. Since some pairs of these compounds coelute on certain columns, the Fully Resolved Native Mono-Deca PCB Mixture was formulated with no coeluting congeners under normal analytical conditions.

Mixed Bromo/Chlorobiphenyl Standards

CIL offers a selection of labeled and unlabeled mixed halogenated biphenyl standards and standard mixtures. While very limited research on these compounds has been done to date, they have been identified in environmental matrices and warrant further investigation.

Unlabeled ‘CS’ PCB Standards

CIL’s primary business is isotopically labeled standards, but it is important to remember that the accuracy and precision of a quantitative analysis is dependent upon the accuracy and precision of the unlabeled (native) standards. In the past, CIL utilized commercially available native standards from multiple vendors for the confirmation of its isotopically labeled standards. It was discovered, however, that there can be substantial variability among the commercial native standards. Thus, CIL initiated the “CS” (certified) PCB standards program. CIL prepares native certified standards using good laboratory practice (GLP). Individual, native crystalline PCB isomers (98% purity) are weighed in triplicate on a microbalance calibrated with NIST-traceable Class S weights and formulated to specific concentration. Triplicate analyses of each of the three solutions in isooctane are carried out using GC-MS. In order to establish statistical control, the relative standard deviation (RSD) of each solution must be less than 5%, and the RSD for the entire set of analyses for all three standards must be <5%. When these parameters have been met, the solutions are combined and the resulting solution analyzed again in triplicate by three chemists. If the RSD of these analyses is also <5%, the final product is the certified PCB standard. These 100 µg/mL solutions are highly accurate native standards for quantitation of PCBs. These standards are used in all CIL calibration series and native standard mixtures and are used to validate all isotope-labeled standards from CIL.