English Abstract This report describes the results of the analysis of
brominated and mixed halogenated (Br/Cl) dibenzo-p-dioxins and furans
(DD/Fs) in the stack gas of an industrial process in which significant
amounts of flame retardants are being used. Stack gas samples have been
collected prior and following the after burner gas cleaning facility.
PCDD/F levels, expressed in 2,3,7,8 TCDD toxic equivalents (TEQ), as
analysed by TNO were 0.20 ng TEQ/m3 ind (before) and 0.05 ng TEQ/m3 ind
(after), respectively. Using both negative chemical ionization (NCI) and
electron impact (EI)-mass spectrometry, several brominated compounds were
found and tentatively identified as bromobiphenyls (BrBs) and
bromochloropolyaromatic hydrocarbons (Br/Cl-PAHs). In addition, some 28
monobromo-polychlorinated (Br/Cln, n=3-7) DD/Fs could be demonstrated in low
concentrations in both samples. Determination of their isomeric structure
failed due to low sample sizes. Estimation of their TEQ value was performed
on the basis of the response ratio for monobroom-heptachloor DD/Fs
(Br-Cl7-DD/F) and quantified polychloro analogues (Cl8D/F). Assuming a
random distribution of the Bratom, and an estimated relative occurrence of
Br to Cl of 1:1000 per substituent, the additional BrCln-DD/F TEQ value was
estimated to be not greater than approximately 1% of the corresponding
PSDD/F-TEQ value.
