Mass spectrometric study of the bromination of technical mixtures of polychlorinated biphenyls

Abstract

The products of bromination of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) that constitute Trichlorobiphenyl and Sovol PCB technical mixtures were studied by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. On the basis of mass spectrometric data, the reaction was shown to result in formation of a mixture of poly(bromochloro)biphenyls containing from one to five bromine atoms and from two to six chlorine atoms in different combinations. It was found that the content of monobromo derivatives increases while the content of di-, tri-, and tetrabromo PCB derivatives decreases when the chlorination degree of the initial PCBs increases.