CB153 as indicator for congener specific determination of PCBS in diverse fish species from Swedish waters

Fish samples from various waters in Sweden were analysed for PCB congeners. The results indicated a good correlation between the CB-153 and ΣPCB earlier analysed by using packed column and Chlophen A-50 as standard. Furthermore, the correlation between CB-153 and the sum of seven commonly-analysed CBs (28, 52, 101, 118, 138, 153 and 180), also generally referred to as the regulation-relevant PCB congeners, was also good, with the correlation coefficients ranging between 0.9752 – 0.9998. While CB-153 accounted for about 10% of the total PCB in herring samples, other fish samples analysed show higher percentages of CB-153 (whitefish and sea trout 11%, each, salmon and perch 12% each, eel 13% and char 14%). These data confirm the possibility to use CB-153 as a valuable indicator for total PCB in monitoring programmes.