Attempt to unravel the composition of toxaphene by comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography with selective detection

Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC x GC) coupled with micro electron-capture and time-of-flight mass spectrometric (TOF-MS) detection has been used to analyse technical toxaphene. An HP-1 x HT-8 column combination yielded highly structured chromatograms and revealed a complex mixture of over 1000 compounds what is significantly higher number than in any study before. The analysis of a mixture of 23 individual congeners and TOF-MS evaluation of technical toxaphene showed that the chromatogram is structured according to the number of chlorine substituents in a molecule. The nature of the compounds (bornane and camphene) does not appear to have any influence. The sum of the peak areas of all congeners in each group was calculated using laboratory-written software; based on these results, the composition of technical toxaphene as a function of the number of chlorine substituents was provisionally calculated and was found that hepta- and octachlorinated compounds represents 75% of the total toxaphene area.