Speaker
Description
Organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), chlorobenzenes (CBs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are persistent organic pollutants characterized by high environmental stability and bioaccumulation. Although their use has been restricted, residues are still frequently detected in water, sediments, and biota as a result of intensive agricultural practices in the past and inadequate waste management.
This work represents an important segment in the implementation of a method for monitoring OCPs, CBs and PCBs in the Vardar River using GC-ECD. There are several approaches used for calibration in quantitative analysis of multiple target compounds that have been optimized here by creation of a calibration application to reduce analysis time and potential human errors in manual data processing. It supports three calibration approaches: single-point calibration with an internal standard, multi-point internal calibration curve, and external calibration curve. The tool was developed in Python, using the Streamlit framework for an interactive interface. It offers a faster, more transparent, and reproducible workflow, also suitable for future environmental analyses of similar contaminants. It was successfully applied in the study of 36 organochlorine contaminants in water samples by direct extraction of retention and peak height data for the 36 target compounds from the chromatograms of the standards and sample extracts most efficiently and accurately.
The financial support received through a student grant from the University Student Assembly of UKIM is gratefully acknowledged.
