TY - JOUR A1 - Mönch, Bettina A1 - Becker, Roland A1 - Jung, Christian A1 - Nehls, Irene T1 - The homogeneity testing of EtG in hair reference materials: A high-throughput procedure using GC-NCI-MS N2 - The validation of a robust quantification procedure for EtG in hair using GC–NCI–MS is presented. Aqueous extraction is followed by complete lyophylization of the extract and derivatization with pentafluoropropionic anhydride (PFPA) under controlled temperature and duration. Clean-up of extracts was dispensable and standard single quadrupole MS displayed sufficient selectivity and sensitivity. The method displayed a wide linearity range and enabled LOD of 0.68 pg/mg, LOQ of 2.4 pg/mg, and precision below 8.12%. Since EtG was seen to display prolonged stability in the aqueous extracts and after derivatization with PFPA this straightforward procedure allows a routine throughput of large quantities of samples with little proneness to procedural scatter of results. The method was applied to demonstrate the homogeneity of two hair reference materials with mean EtG contents of 8.48 pg/mg and 22.0 pg/mg. Aside from the application in homogeneity studies of hair reference materials predominantly in the concentration range of 10–50 pg/mg the method was also designed for daily routine quantification of real-world sample with regard to drinking behavior assessment. KW - Extraction KW - Derivatization KW - High-throughput analysis KW - Reference materials KW - Homogeneity KW - Measurement uncertainty PY - 2013 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forsciint.2013.01.018 SN - 0379-0738 SN - 1872-6283 VL - 226 IS - 1-3 SP - 202 EP - 207 PB - Elsevier Ltd. CY - Amsterdam [u.a.] AN - OPUS4-27998 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ammann, Dominic A1 - Becker, Roland A1 - Kohl, Anka A1 - Hänisch, Jessica A1 - Nehls, Irene T1 - Degradation of the ethyl glucuronide content in hair by hydrogen peroxide and a non-destructive assay for oxidative hair treatment using infra-red spectroscopy N2 - The assessment of quantification results of the alcohol abuse marker ethyl glucuronide (EtG) in hair in comparison to the cut-off values for the drinking behavior may be complicated by cosmetic hair bleaching. Thus, the impact of increasing exposure to hydrogen peroxide on the EtG content of hair was investigated. Simultaneously, the change of absorbance in the range of 1000–1100 cm-1 indicative for the oxidation of cystine was investigated non-destructively by attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) using pulverized portions of the respective hair samples. Hair samples treated with hydrogen peroxide consistently displayed a significantly increased absorbance at 1040 cm-1 associated with the formation of cysteic acid. The EtG content decreased significantly if the hair was treated with alkaline hydrogen peroxide as during cosmetic bleaching. It could be shown that ATR-FTIR is capable of detecting an exposure to hydrogen peroxide when still no brightening was visible and already before the EtG content deteriorated significantly. Thus, hair samples suspected of having been exposed to oxidative treatment may be checked non-destructively by a readily available technique. This assay is also possible retrospectively after EtG extraction and using archived samples. KW - Hair testing KW - Oxidation KW - Bleaching KW - Cysteic acid KW - HPLC–MS/MS PY - 2014 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forsciint.2014.07.029 SN - 0379-0738 SN - 1872-6283 VL - 244 SP - 30 EP - 35 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam [u.a.] AN - OPUS4-31755 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Becker, Roland A1 - Dorgerloh, Ute A1 - Paulke, E. A1 - Mumme, J. A1 - Nehls, Irene T1 - Hydrothermal carbonization of biomass: Major organic components of the aqueous phase N2 - Process waters obtained from hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) of wheat straw, a biogas digestate derived thereof, and four woody biomass feedstocks were quantified regarding the total organic carbon (TOC) and selected organic compounds. HTC runs revealed that TOC loads were largely unaffected by process severity or type of feedstock whereas the C2–C6 fatty acids, determined by GC, displayed clear effects of temperature and feedstock. HPLC demonstrated simultaneously the initial increase and subsequent consumption of cellulose-derived furfural and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural as well as the increase of the lignin-derived 2-methoxyphenol. 2-Methylbenzofuran, an example for a substance potentially harmful to aquatic biota, was observed in high concentration in the HTC liquor from wheat straw-based feedstocks. KW - Furfurals KW - Gas chromatography KW - Liquid chromatography KW - Phenols KW - Process water KW - Total organic carbon PY - 2014 DO - https://doi.org/10.1002/ceat.201300401 SN - 0930-7516 SN - 1521-4125 VL - 37 IS - 3 SP - 511 EP - 518 PB - Wiley-VCH Verl. CY - Weinheim AN - OPUS4-30333 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mönch, Bettina A1 - Becker, Roland A1 - Nehls, Irene T1 - Determination of ethyl glucuronide in hair: a rapid sample pretreatment involving simultaneous milling and extraction N2 - A combination of simultaneous milling and extraction known as micropulverized extraction was developed for the quantification of the alcohol marker ethyl glucuronide (EtG) in hair samples using a homogeneous reference material and a mixer mill. Best extraction results from 50 mg of hair were obtained with 2-mL plastic tubes containing two steel balls (Ø = 5 mm), 0.5 mL of water and with an oscillating frequency of 30 s-1 over a period of 30 min. EtG was quantified employing a validated GC-MS procedure involving derivatization with pentafluoropropionic acid anhydride. This micropulverization procedure was compared with dry milling followed by separate aqueous extraction and with aqueous extraction after manual cutting to millimeter-size snippets. Micropulverization yielded 28.0±1.70 pg/mg and was seen to be superior to manually cutting (23.0±0.83 pg/mg) and equivalent to dry grinding (27.7±1.71 pg/mg) with regard to completeness of EtG extraction. The option to process up to 20 samples simultaneously makes micropulverization especially valuable for the high throughput of urgent samples. KW - Ethyl glucuronide KW - Hair KW - Micropulverized extraction KW - GC-MS PY - 2014 DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-013-0939-z SN - 0937-9827 SN - 1437-1596 VL - 128 IS - 1 SP - 69 EP - 72 PB - Springer CY - Berlin ; Heidelberg AN - OPUS4-30063 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Weber, M. A1 - Durmaz, V. A1 - Becker, Roland A1 - Esslinger, Susanne T1 - Predictive identification of Pentabromocyclododecene (PBCD) isomers with high binding affinity to hTTR N2 - The binding affinities of the six main hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) stereoisomers and all of their possible 48 allylic pentabromocyclododecene (PBCD) metabolites to the endocrinous human transthyretin receptor (hTTR) were investigated and compared to the natural binder thyroxine, and the two brominated diphenyl ethers BDE-47 and 3-hydroxy-BDE-47. The endocrine disrupting potency was approximated by a combination of two methods: a surface matching with the natural binder thyroxine (T4) followed by approximation of free binding energies for various binding modes within hTTR. The results indicate slightly higher binding affinities for both BDE structures than for T4 itself and similarly high affinities for two trans-configurated PBCD isomers. For many other PBCD isomers, intermediate values were computed, whereas all HBCD diastereomers yielded significantly lower binding affinities. T2 - Dioxin 2009 - 29th International symposium on halogenated persistent organic pollutants / Organohalogen compounds CY - Beijing, China DA - 2009-08-23 KW - Flammschutzmittel KW - Thyroxin KW - Molecular modeling PY - 2009 UR - http://www.dioxin20xx.org/pdfs/2009/09-54.pdf VL - 71 SP - 000247 EP - 000252 CY - Beijing, China AN - OPUS4-20980 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Paul, Andrea A1 - Wander, Lukas A1 - Becker, Roland A1 - Goedecke, Caroline A1 - Braun, Ulrike T1 - High-throughput NIR spectroscopic (NIRS) detection of microplastics in soil N2 - The increasing pollution of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems with plastic debris leads to the accumulation of microscopic plastic particles of still unknown amount. To monitor the degree of contamination analytical methods are urgently needed, which help to quantify microplastics (MP). Currently, time-costly purified materials enriched on filters are investigated both by micro-infrared spectroscopy and/or micro-Raman. Although yielding precise results, these techniques are time consuming, and are restricted to the analysis of a small part of the sample in the order of few micrograms. To overcome these problems, here we tested a macroscopic dimensioned NIR process-spectroscopic method in combination with chemometrics. For calibration, artificial MP/soil mixtures containing defined ratios of polyethylene, polyethylene terephthalate, polypropylene, and polystyrene with diameters < 125 µm were prepared and measured by a process FT-NIR spectrometer equipped with a fiber optic reflection probe. The resulting spectra were processed by chemometric models including support vector machine regression (SVR), and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). Validation of models by MP mixtures, MP-free soils and real-world samples, e.g. and fermenter residue, suggest a reliable detection and a possible classification of MP at levels above 0.5 to 1.0 mass% depending on the polymer. The benefit of the combined NIRS chemometric approach lies in the rapid assessment whether soil contains MP, without any chemical pre-treatment. The method can be used with larger sample volumes and even allows for an online prediction and thus meets the demand of a high-throughput method. KW - Microplastics KW - Soil KW - Chemometrics KW - PLS-DA KW - Support vector machines KW - Near Infrared Spectroscopy PY - 2018 DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-2180-2 SN - 1614-7499 SN - 0944-1344 VL - 26 IS - 8 SP - 7364 EP - 7374 PB - Springer AN - OPUS4-45405 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Becker, Roland A1 - Buge, Hans-Gerhard A1 - Nehls, Irene T1 - The determination of adsorbable organically bound halogens (AOX) in soil: interlaboratory comparisons and reference materials N2 - The interlaboratory variability in the quantification of adsorbable organically bound halogens (AOX) in industrially contaminated soil is presented. Three consecutive rounds of a proficiency testing scheme, in which between 88 and 119 routine laboratories participated, yielded relative reproducibility standard deviations between 7 and 20% at AOX contents between 10.9 and 268 mg kg-1. Nineteen laboratories with established proficiency were invited to participate in the certification of the AOX content in three soil reference materials meant for the internal quality control in analytical laboratories. The certified values are (1349 ± 59) mg kg-1, (80 ± 7) mg kg-1 and (102 ± 8) mg kg-1, respectively. KW - Certified reference materials KW - European Reference Material KW - Proficiency testing KW - Organohalogen compounds KW - Summation parameter PY - 2007 DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00769-007-0308-z SN - 0949-1775 SN - 1432-0517 VL - 12 IS - 12 SP - 647 EP - 651 PB - Springer CY - Berlin AN - OPUS4-16670 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Scharkoi, O. A1 - Becker, Roland A1 - Esslinger, Susanne A1 - Weber, M. A1 - Nehls, Irene T1 - Predicting sites of cytochrome P450-mediated hydroxylation applied to CYP3A4 and hexabromocyclododecane N2 - This article describes a simple and quick in silico method for the prediction of cytochrome P450 (CYP)-mediated hydroxylation of drug-like compounds. Testosterone and progesterone, two known substrates of CYP3A4, are used to test the method. Further, we apply the procedure to predict sites of hydroxylation of isomers of the flame retardant hexabromocyclododecane by CYP3A4. Within the method, the compound is rotated in the binding pocket of the cytochrome, so that each hydrogen under consideration is placed near the active centre. Afterwards, short molecular dynamics simulations are provided for each step of the rotation. All steps of the simulation are compared concerning the distances between the hydrogens and the active centre and the corresponding energies. The computational results correlate well with experimental results. KW - Predicting sites of metabolism KW - Cytochrome P450 KW - Hydroxylation KW - Metabolism of HBCD PY - 2015 DO - https://doi.org/10.1080/08927022.2014.898845 SN - 0892-7022 SN - 1029-0435 VL - 41 IS - 7 SP - 538 EP - 546 PB - Gordon and Breach CY - New York, NY AN - OPUS4-30492 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Becker, Roland A1 - Sauer, Andreas A1 - Bremser, Wolfram T1 - Fifteen years of proficiency testing of total petrol hydrocarbon determination in soil: a story of success N2 - The total petrol hydrocarbon (TPH) content in soil is determined by gas chromatographic separation and flame ionisation detection according to ISO 16703 in routine laboratories for about 20 years. The development of the interlaboratory variability observed with this analytical procedure over 15 years in a proficiency testing scheme conducted annually with more than 170 participants is evaluated in detail. A significant improvement of the reproducibility standard deviation among participants is observed over the years and attributed to an increasing familiarity with the procedure. Nevertheless, the determination of TPH in the environmentally relevant mass fraction range between 500 mg/kg and 10 000 mg/kg in soils or sediments is far from reaching the reproducibility standard deviations predicted by the Horwitz curve. It is seen that laboratories with sporadic participation tend to report higher bias, while a core group of laboratories participating on a regular basis arrived at reproducibility standard deviations below 20 %. Results from a given laboratory obtained on two different samples tend to be highly correlated in the same PT round indicating a sound repeatability. Expectedly, the within-laboratory correlation between results from consecutive rounds was considerably lower. However, results from consecutive rounds with a temporal distance of 1, 2 or 3 years revealed largely similar correlations which suggests that the within-laboratory reproducibility adjusts to a constant level at least after a period of 1 year. KW - Mineralölkohlenwasserstoffe KW - Boden KW - Ringversuch KW - Gaschromatographie KW - GC-FID KW - Eingnugsprüfung KW - Proficiency Testing PY - 2019 DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00769-019-01383-x SN - 0949-1775 SN - 1432-0517 VL - 24 IS - 4 SP - 289 EP - 296 PB - Springer AN - OPUS4-48419 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Köppen, Robert A1 - Becker, Roland A1 - Emmerling, Franziska A1 - Jung, Christian A1 - Nehls, Irene T1 - Enantioselective Preparative HPLC Separation of the HBCD-Stereoisomers from the Technical Product and Their Absolute Structure Elucidation Using X-Ray Crystallography N2 - 1,2,5,6,9,10-Hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) is a widely used flame retardant, which tends to persist in the environment and accumulates in biota. The six stereoisomers (three racemates named α-, β-, and γ-HBCD) of the technical mixture were isolated with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Direct separations were performed on a chiral stationary phase containing permethylated -cyclodextrin (NUCLEODEX -PM column) and the pure enantiomers of α-, β-, and γ-HBCD were physically characterized for the first time. The absolute configurations of all six isomers were determined by anomalous dispersion using single crystal X-ray crystallography. Optical rotations αD in tetrahydrofuran were +4.2/-4.0 (α-HBCD), +26.1/-27.5 (β-HBCD), and +68.0/-66.3 (γ-HBCD). The sense of rotation could be correlated with the absolute configurations of α-, β-, and γ-HBCD enantiomers and their order of elution on a chiral permethylated β-cyclodextrin-bonded stationary phase. The diastereomers α-, β-, and γ-HBCD displayed distinctly different melting points as well as 1H-, 13C NMR, and IR spectra. KW - Brominated flame retardant KW - Chiral separation KW - Anomalous dispersion KW - Crystal structures KW - Optical rotation KW - Absolute configuration PY - 2007 DO - https://doi.org/10.1002/chir.20366 SN - 0899-0042 SN - 1520-636X VL - 19 IS - 3 SP - 214 EP - 222 PB - Wiley-Liss CY - New York, NY AN - OPUS4-14718 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -