title: Determination of emerging halogenated flame retardants and polybrominated diphenyl ethers in serum by gas chromatography mass spectrometry.
abstract: Emerging flame retardants are used in a great variety of household goods and thus have the potential to pollute our indoor environment. Health concerns regarding exposure to these flame retardants demand new methods to survey their occurrence in humans. This work describes development and optimization of an analytical method comprising solid phase extraction and gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry for the determination of besides 15 polybrominated diphenyl ethers, 7 emerging halogenated flame retardants in human serum (1,2-bis[2,4,6-tribromophenoxy] ethane, decabromodiphenyl ethane, hexabromobenzene, Dechlorane Plus(®), hexachlorocyclopentenyl-dibromocyclooctane, dechlorane 602 and 603). The method was thoroughly validated at three spiking levels obtaining averaged recoveries >80% with a RSD of 5% (n=12). Accuracies ranged from 88 to 125% except for DBDPE, which averaged 66% with overall RSD of 11% (n=12). Method limits of detection (MLD) ranged from 0.3 to 5.4 pg/mL serum, except for decabromodiphenyl ether and decabromodiphenyl ethane for which MLDs were 14 and 20 pg/mL serum, respectively. In human serum samples from Norway, we were able to detect and quantify hexabromobenzene, 1,2-bis[2,4,6-tribromophenoxy] ethane, Dechlorane Plus(®), Dechlorane 602 and 603.
authors.affiliation: Department of Exposure and Risk Assessment, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway; Departament de Química Analítica i Química Orgànica, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain. Electronic address: enrique.cequier@fhi.no.
authors.forename: Enrique
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Cequier
authors.forename: Rosa Maria
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Marcé
authors.forename: Georg
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Becher
authors.forename: Cathrine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Thomsen
mesh_terms: D004785:Environmental Pollutants / Q000097:blood* / Q000737:chemistry; D005411:Flame Retardants / Q000032:analysis*; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*; D055768:Halogenated Diphenyl Ethers / Q000097:blood* / Q000737:chemistry; D006801:Humans; D006843:Hydrocarbons, Chlorinated / Q000097:blood* / Q000737:chemistry; D057230:Limit of Detection; D016014:Linear Models; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
chemical_list: D004785:Environmental Pollutants; D005411:Flame Retardants; D055768:Halogenated Diphenyl Ethers; D006843:Hydrocarbons, Chlorinated
keywords: Blood; Dechlorane; Emerging flame retardant; GC–MS; PBDE