Analysis of Toxaphene

Abstract

Toxaphene, a widely and chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticide produced by chlorination of camphene, consists of a poorly defined mixture of at least 180–190 substances. Most of these conform the formulars C₁₀H₁₈-_nCl_n and C₁₀H₁₆-_nCl_n, where n is 6–10. Although the chromatographic behaviour of the toxaphene components is extremely similar, seven components have been isolated up to now, six of which are hepta- to decachlor derivatives of bornane. In the following work, isolation and identification of these compounds with the help of spectroscopical methods are described and their behaviour under biotic and abiotic conditions are studied. The experiments shown, that toxaphene is slowly to rapidly degraded in various environmental systems.