ABSTRACT
I. INTRODUCTION Not only in Belgium but in all countries of the European Community, 1999 will be remembered as the year of the dioxin crisis. At the beginning of the crisis nobody could imagine the important role separation sciences and especially capillary gas chromatography (CGC) would play to get out of this impasse. Thousands and thousands of food samples had to be analyzed before they could be released for consumption, and this had a tremendous impact on the Belgian economy. Moreover, the toxicity of the pollutants caused the welfare of the population to be questioned, resulting in a panic situation. In Belgium, all scientists and laboratories with the knowledge to analyze these pollutants had to accept responsibility. We analyzed more than 5000 samples during a 6-month period with a minimum of instrumentation and manpower. The methodology was updated continuously, taking advantage of recent developments in sample preparation and CGC. Their implementation, however, had to be accompanied with validation studies and the analysis of certified samples. This chapter describes the different steps in the optimization procedure that resulted in a very high throughput and thus high productivity.
