Studies of extractable organohalogens in farmed Atlantic salmon muscle and skin by neutron activation in conjunction with size exclusion and solid phase extraction chromatography.

An instrumental neutron activation analysis method in conjunction with Compton suppression spectrometry was developed for the simultaneous determination of nanogram levels of Cl, Br and I in salmon muscle and skin. Several non-chlorinated solvent systems were evaluated for the extraction of lipids containing organohalogens and an acetone-hexane (1:1) system was selected because it gave the highest extraction efficiency with least contamination. An extensive quality assurance program was designed. Lipid fractionation procedures were developed using size exclusion, solid phase extraction and thin layer chromatography followed by characterization using 1H, 13C and 31P nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometry. Results show that both muscle and skin had high levels of triacylglycerols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]