Evaluation of the State-of-the-Art Measurement Capabilities for Selected PBDEs and decaBB in Plastic by the International Intercomparison CCQM-P114

An international intercomparison involving eight National Metrology Institutes (NMIs) was conducted to establish their current measurement capabilities for determining five selected congeners from the brominated flame retardant classes polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs). As a study material, a candidate reference material consisting of polypropylene spiked with technical mixtures of penta-, octa- and decabromo diphenyl ether and deca biphenyl, with thoroughly assessed material homogeneity and stability was used. The methods applied by the participants differed in the procedure for sample pre-treatment, extraction, clean-up, employed calibrants and type of calibration procedure, and analytical method used for separation, identification, and quantification of the flame retardant congeners (GC-ECD, GC-EI-MS, GC-ECNI-MS, LC-ICP-MS). The laboratory means agreed well with each other (relative standard deviations of the mean of means of 1.9, 4.8, 5.5, and 5.4% for the brominated diphenyl ether (BDE) 47, 183, and 209 and for the brominated biphenyl (BB) congener 209, respectively. For BDE 206, a relative standard deviation of 28.5% was obtained. For all five congeners, within-laboratory relative standard deviations of six measurements obtained under intermediate precision conditions were between 1 and 10%, and reported expanded measurements uncertainties typically ranged from 4-10% (8-14% for BDE 206). Furthermore, the results are in good agreement with those obtained in the characterization exercise for determining certified values for the flame retardant congeners in the same material. The results demonstrate the state-of-the-art measurement capabilities of NMIs for quantifying representative BDE congeners and BB209 in a polymer matrix dissolving only partially when extracted, and would allow to proceed with a key comparison aiming at underpinning calibration and measurement capability (CMC) claims of NMIs.

ZELENY Reinhard;  VOORSPOELS Stefan;  RICCI Marina;  BECKER R.;  JUNG C.;  BREMSER Wolfram;  SITTIDECH M.;  PANYAWATHANAKIT N.;  WONG W.F.;  CHOI K.C.;  LO K.C.;  YEUNG W.Y.;  KIM D. H.;  HAN J.;  RYU J.;  MINGWU S.;  CHAO W.;  SCHANTZ Michele M.;  LIPPA K. A.;  MATSUYAMA S.; 

2010-02-26

SPRINGER HEIDELBERG

JRC56161

1618-2642,   

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC56161,   

10.1007/s00216-009-3314-7,