Quantitative estimation of brominated compounds for restriction of hazardous substances (RoHS) present in computer key board switches (CKBS) using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

Abstract

A reliable, cost effective and user-friendly method has been used for the determination of polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDE) in computer key board switches (CKBS). The presence of the commercially added BDE-209 which is decabromo diphenyl ether (Deca-BDE) congener has been identified, established and estimated using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. For extracting the analyte quantitatively from the material, Soxhlet extraction using toluene followed by multi-layer silica column chromatography was used to obtain the desired unambiguous quantitative results as per standard method. The results were confirmed by repeating, reproducing using standard addition recovery and by calculating measurement uncertainty. The CKBS samples contain around 49.6 ± 0.5 mg/kg of BDE-209. The recovery of spiked standard was between 90–93% and the linearity of the standard curve had a correlation coefficient of R² = 0.9974.