Five Standard Reference Material 1944, New York, New Jersey Waterway sediment (SRM 1944, National Institutes of Standards and Testing) were extracted, cleaned and quantified using the same method for soils. Gas chromatography (GC) in tandem with Mass Spectrometry GC-MS/MS (Agilent 7000) in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode was used to quantify all 28 individual or coeluting certified congeners. The GC was equipped with a Supelco SBP-Octyl capillary column (30 m × 0.25 mm ID, 0.25 mm film thicknesses) with helium as carrier gas.

Selected PCB congener in sediment Standard Reference Material (R) 1944 using GC-MS/MS: The congeners with an asterisk indicate the main congener identified by the reference material. Our analytical method yields a different congener separation.