| dc.description.abstract | The need for continuous monitoring of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) has necessitated the development of analytical techniques that are sensitive and selective with minimal reagent requirement.In light of this,we developed a column for clean-up of soil and sediment extracts, which is less demanding in terms of the amount of solvent and sorbent. The dual-layer column consists of acidified silica gel and molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs). MIPs were synthesized via aqueous suspension polymerization using PCB 15 as the dummy template, 4-vinylpyridine as the functional monomer and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as the cross-linker and the obtained particles characterized via SEM, BET, and batch rebinding assays. Pre-concentration of the spiked real-world water sample using MISPE gave recoveries between 85.2 and 104.4% (RSD < 8.69). On the other hand, the specific dual-layer column designed for clean-up of extracts from complex matrices provided recoveries of 91.6–102.5% (RSD < 4%) for spiked soil, which was comparable to clean-up using acidified silica (70.4–90.5%; RSD < 3.72%) and sulfoxide modified silica (89.7–103.0%; RSD < 13.0%). However, the polymers were reusable maintaining recoveries of 79.8– 111.8% after 30 cycles of regeneration and re-use, thereby availing a cost-effective clean-up procedure for continuous monitoring of PCBs. Method detection limits were 0.01–0.08 ng g!1 and 0.002–0.01 ng mL!1 for solid matrices and water, respectively | en_US |
