Acid/extraction treatment of bivalves for organotin speciation

A method is described for leaching of nanogram amounts of monobutyltin (MBT), dibutyltin (DBT), tributyltin (TBT), monophenyltin (MPT), diphenyltin (DPT), triphenyltin (TPT), and monomethyltin (MMT) from bivalves. The procedure is based on soaking the samples in a water-hydrogen bromide mixture (1:1) with magnetic stirring for 30 min followed by extraction with a 0.04% (w/v) tropolone solution in dichloromethane for 2 h. Organotins are determined by GC-FPD after clean-up through a Florisil column and fat hydrolysis by 1mol/L NaOH, followed by derivatization through Grignard pentylation. The method has been applied for an investigation of the occurrence of organotins in bivalves in south-west Spain.