Pressurized liquid extraction using the accelerated solventextractor (Dionex ASE 200) has been evaluated for thedetermination of mono-, di- and tributyltin (MBT, DBT,and TBT, respectively) in PACS-2 certified referencematerial. A double-enriched spike containing
119Sn-enriched MBT and TBT and
118Sn-enriched DBT allowedfor the simultaneous determination of the three butyltinspecies and the factors governing species interconversion.The stability of the spike was evaluated by reverse isotopedilution experiments covering more than one year withsatisfactory results. Quantitative recoveries using ASE forTBT and DBT were obtained at temperatures above 110
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C. The effect of the extraction time and number of staticcycles was evaluated. Results suggest that extractionefficiency was quantitative with extraction times as low as10 min for all butyltin species at 110
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C. Decompositionreactions were only detected at the higher temperaturesassayed (140 and 175
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C) and that was only for thedegradation of DBT to MBT (~4%). The results found forMBT were ~25% higher than the certified value for thePACS-2 sediment reference material in agreement withprevious results obtained by ultrasonic and microwaveassisted extraction.