ABSTRACT
Many technical materials may contain or be contaminated by polychlorinated biphenyls's (PCB)'s and great care must be exercised to avoid the contamination of samples from this source during sampling and analysis. Otherwise, the determination of PCB's in environmental samples differs little from that of chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides. Adsorption and desorption of PCB's as in the case of water samples is a distinct possibility. In order to determine meaningful levels of PCB's in a given species, biologically well-defined samples must be collected, and at least 20 to 25 organisms must be individually analyzed. PCB's were extracted from air using sintered glass absorbers or impingers filled with 75 ml amyl acetate or secondary butyl alcohol. Hexane is the solvent of choice for the extraction of PCB's from water. Holden used a mixture of hexane and isopropanol to extract PCB's from sewage sludge. Lipids would interfere with the determination of PCB's by contaminating the GLC column and detector.
