Date of Award

2009

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Applied Science (MASc)

Department

Environmental Applied Science and Management

First Advisor

Ching Lo

Second Advisor

James Li

Abstract

An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was tested for its ability to screen for PCDD/F in soils and sediments at 50, 1000 and 10,000 picograms toxic equivalents per gram of soil pgTEQ g-₁ (n=48, r²=0.994, slope=0.94). These results relied on two concepts developed in this thesis. The first, a congener correction factor, corrects ELISA results for differences in how ELISA and GC-HRMS calculate the dioxin content of a sample. The congener correction factor increased the correlation between ELISA and GC-HRMS TEQ values calculated using World Health Organization (WHO) toxic equivalency factors (TEF) from 83% to 94%. The correlation between ELISA and GC-HRMS TEQ values calculated using North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) TEF remained strong when the correction factor was applied, falling from 102% to 94%. The second concept, a sample algorithm allows ELIAS to efficiently measure unknown PCDD/F concentrations between 30 and 10,5000 pgTEQ g-¹. The algorithm successfully placed 24 of 28 samples into their correct concentration ranges in a maximum of two ELISA each. A cost analysis of using the algorithm predicted that ELISA can screen samples three times faster than GC-HRMS while at a 60% reduction in operating cost. The success of ELISA in conjunction with its time and cost savings indicate that it can replace GC-HRMS in situations where the high precision of GC-HRMS is not required.