Organochlorine pesticide analysis in oil seeds and vegetable oil: simplification of silica gel clean-up and elimination of chlorinated solvents.

For the determination of organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) in vegetable oils and oil seed samples, a solid-phase extraction method is described, modified from that developed by Steinwandter, with silica gel columns activated with a 10% water content. In comparison to the method developed by Steinwandter, we reduced the amount of solvents and chemicals required for sample preparation and substituted dichloromethane by the much less toxic tert-butylmethyl ether in the eluent mixture. In this manner the sample preparation technique becomes more convenient, cheaper and ecologically more justifiable. Under the specified sample preparation and elution conditions 1 g silica gel retained about 16 mg triglycerides whereas the OCPs were quantitatively eluted. The recoveries for hexachlorobenze, (HCB) alpha-HCH, Lindane (gamma-HCH) gamma-HCH, Heptachlor, Heptachlorepoxid, o,p'-DDE, p,p'-DDE, Dieldrin, o,p'-DDT, p,p'-DDT were between 75 and 90%. The reproducibility of the total method was excellent as well as its ruggedness.