Determination of hydrophobic organic contaminants in sediment fines and bulk sediment

We investigated 41 hydrophobic organic contaminants set of sediment samples (from 16 monitoring stations) taken in the North Sea (German EEZ). The samples were taken by the German Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) in June 2016 on the RV Atair (Cruise AT239) using a box corer. Bulk sediment samples were analyzed for hydrophobic organic contaminants unsing micowave extraction, column clean-up, size-exclusion chromatography followed by GC-MS/MS analysis. Bulk sediment samples were additionally wet-sieved to seperate the sediment fine fraction (< 63 µm) which was analyzed accordingly. This study provides a comprehensive overview of hydrophobic organic contaminant concentrations in sediment fines (< 63 µm) for the German EEZ. The results indicate that the improved wet-sieving procedure is capable of physically normalizing the concentrations of the investigated contaminants and is useful for the comparison of different sediment types.