Rapid determination of decabromodiphenyl ether in polystyrene by thermal desorption-GC/MS.

A rapid determination of decabromodiphenyl ether (DeBDE) in polystyrene (PS) by thermal desorption (TD)-GC/MS was studied. The TD-GC/MS method using a pyrolysis-GC/MS system allowed the quick quantification of DeBDE in a waste TV back plate composing of a PS flame-retarded with polybrominated diphenyl ethers on the basis of the resulting chromatogram with a ca. 4% relative standard deviation without using any tedious sample pretreatment, such as solvent extraction.