Determination of butyltin compounds in marine biological samples by enzymatic hydrolysis and HG-GC-QFAAS detection

Release of organotin compounds from marine biological samples is obtained by solubilization of tissues with a mixture of enzymes in aqueous phosphate buffer. Direct determination of butyltin compounds in the incubated sample is made by the HG-GC-QFAAS method. The optimized procedure allows quantitative recoveries of the different butyltin species from wet or freeze-dried spiked materials (oyster, mussel, salmon) without any degradation of analytes. The detection limits obtained are at the ng g−1 level. This two step procedure has been applied to a certified reference material (NIES fish tissue) and to real world shellfish samples (mussel, scallop).