Gas chromatographic study of technical diphenyl ether penta-, octa- and decabromo derivatives

In this work we have studied the composition of three technical diphenyl ether products (pentabromo, octabromo and decabromo derivatives) by GC/MS with one GC oven program on a 60 in high-temperature GC column. Using this optimized method, the brominated diphenyl ethers (BDE 28-BDE 209) eluted between 12.3 and 44.2 min and 71 peaks were identified in three technical diphenyl ether mixtures. Sixty-nine of the peaks could be identified as bromodiphenyl ether congeners, whereas the remaining two were identified as tribromo and dibromo dibenzofurans (PBDFs). Our evaluation suggests that there are still BDE standards missing for an entire study of the fate of BDEs in environmental samples.