Five sediment samples were collected in Bua on the Swedish west coast, near two industries, a paper mill, and a nuclear power plant. The two industries use water in their processes and have long been associated with releases of different substances, such as PCBs, and other chlorinated compounds. The environmental impact by the two industries is believed to be significant. The aim of the project was to examine the sediments close to both the water intake and water output to determine if these industrial activities have in any way changed the composition of the sediments. The sediments were extracted by Soxhlet extraction, followed by a deactivated silica and an acidic silica clean-up and then analysed by using a gas chromatograph coupled to a mass spectrometer, (GC-MS) with electron ionization, EI+, mode used in full scan mode. Each mass spectra were analysed by comparing them to the NIST database from 1998. The results were inconclusive since the peaks were not properly resolved, causing a poor correlation to the NIST database. One batch was specifically analysed for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) by using an atmospheric pressure gas chromatograph (APGC) coupled to a mass spectrometer (MS). The PCB analysis provided accurate results, except for the Ringhals intake where the MS became saturated due to the high levels. The river Viskan also showed high levels of PCB. The congener pattern from PCBs found near Ringhals intake resembled an Aroclor pattern from Aroclor 1248. Since the Aroclor pattern is only seen in Ringhals intake, the source is most likely from the small harbour and not from either of the industries.

The aim of this study was to develop an analytical method for fluorinated silanes. Furthermore, as a secondary aim, to explore if there would be possible to detect 1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorooctyl triethoxysilane (6:2 PTrEtSi) and 1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorodecyl triethoxysilane (8:2 PTrEtSi) in two different matrices, sludge and cosmetic extract. The method development included experiments using LC-MS, LC-MS/MS, UPC2, GC-MS and APGC-MS/MS and was carried out using standards containing 6:2 PTrEtSi and 8:2 PTrEtSi. The analytical method that worked best for the compounds was GC-MS/MS and an analytical method using APGC-MS/MS was developed for fluorinated silanes. The IDL for 6:2 PTrEtSi was 0.0012 μg/mL and 1.32 μg/mL for 8:2 PTrEtSi. This makes the developed method suitable for high contaminated samples, such as extracts from cosmetic products. It was concluded that a method using LC as the analytical instrument would not work for the two target compounds since they were too reactive with the mobile phase. However, LC could be a good choice for siloxanes, compounds that are formed from hydrolysis and condensation of fluorinated silanes. The samples analyzed in this study were three sludge extracts and one extract from a cosmetic product. 6:2 PTrEtSi was expected to be detected in the cosmetic sample since the compound was stated on the table of contents of the cosmetic product. No detection of 6:2 TrEtSi or 8:2 TrEtSi could be made in either of the samples. The reason for this was suspected to be transformation or degradation of the compounds into other compounds. Therefore, a full scan of the cosmetic sample using LC-MS/MS was included in the experiment as an addition to verify the suspicions that compounds such as siloxanes could have been formed. An interesting peak was discovered with m/z 947 which could be a disiloxane of 6:2 PTrEtSi.