Analysis of Chlorinated Paraffins in Environmental Matrices: The Ultimate Challenge for the Analytical Chemist

Abstract

Commercial chlorinated paraffins (CPs) are derived from the free radical chlorination of n-alkane mixtures. Starting mixtures used in the synthesis fall into three categories: C10–C13 (short); C14–C17 (medium) and C20–C30 (long). This results in complex mixtures containing significant numbers of constitutional and optical isomers. It is this complexity that makes analysis of CPs extremely chal- lenging. Modern analytical methods employ either single or multi-dimensional gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometric detectors operated in the negative ion mode. This chapter discusses the advances that have been made in the analysis of CPs in environmental samples with a focus on modern analytical techniques.