The development of an alternative dispersed liquid-liquid microextraction (DLLME) protocol utilizing a low density extraction solvent, toluene, is described here for the extraction of the brominated flame retardant, tetrabromobisphenol-A (TBBPA) from dust. Method parameters of dispersive solvent type and extraction solvent type were optimized. Excellent recovery (88.9%; <i>n</i> = 5 spike replicates) with good precision was achieved in a spike and recovery study. This developed method was utilized to survey TBBPA concentrations in dust sampled from a local electronics recycling facility from the ambient environment and 25 computer towers undergoing recycling. Concentrations of TBBPA from dust in computer towers ranged from not detected (<i>n</i> = 2) to 63.5 μg/g with a mean value of 10.8 μg/g and median of 4.1 μg/g TBBPA. A composite sample of dust collected from the ambient indoor environment was analyzed with resulting concentration of 35.7 μg/g.

Development of low density solvent DLLME-GC/MS method for quantitation of tetrabromobisphenol-A from dust

249th National Meeting (2015)

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