Development of a laboratory analytical method beneficial to the policies of the Canada-wide standards for dioxins and furans

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.