Determination of butyltin and phenyltin compounds in biological and sediment samples by electron-capture gas chromatography.

A method is described for the gas chromatographic determination of nanogram amounts of mono-, di- and tributyltin compounds and mono-, di- and triphenyltin compounds in biological and sediment samples. These compounds are converted into the corresponding chlorides with hydrochloric acid, extracted with ethyl acetate and hydrogenated with sodium tetrahydroborate. The corresponding hydrides, mono-n-butyltin hydride, di-n-butyltin hydride, tri-n-butyltin hydride, monophenyltin hydride, diphenyltin hydride triphenyltin hydride, are detected by electron-capture gas chromatography after clean-up by silica gel column chromatography. The detection limits are 10-20 ng/g for mono-n-butyltin chloride, 0.5-1 ng/g for di-n-butyltin chloride, 1-2 ng/g for tri-n-butyltin chloride and diphenyltin chloride and 2.5-5 ng/g for monophenyltin chloride and triphenyltin chloride, in biological and sediment samples.