title: Improved method for rapid detection of phthalates in bottled water by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.
abstract: An improved gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) method for simple, rapid and precise quantification of phthalates in drinking water is presented. This method was validated for bis (2-n-butoxyethyl) phthalate (DBEP), bis (2-n-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), butyl benzyl phthalate (BBP), di-butyl phthalate (DBP), diethyl phthalate (DEP), dihexyl phthalate (DHP), dimethyl phthalate (DMP), di-n-octyl phthalate (DNOP) and dinonyl phthalate (DINP). Linearity of 0.9984>r(2)>0.9975 in the range of 0.075-4.8μg/mL for the selected phthalates was obtained. Accuracy values were in the range of 93-114% and RSD% for the analysis of 1.2μg/mL of each phthalate was below 2.3% (n=9). This new method design has significantly improved the detection in terms of rapidity, specificity, repeatability and accuracy compared to available methods. The procedure has been applied to the analyses of three different brands of commercially available bottled mineral water and the corresponding plastic bottles. Phthalates were extracted with dichloromethane and re-constituted in cyclohexane prior to GC-MS analysis. When the validated GC-MS method was applied to the quantification of the selected phthalates in the samples, only DBP (up to 0.0675±0.0018μg/mL) and DEHP (up to 1.6848±0.1631μg/mL) were found. Furthermore, we provide specific data about the concentration of DBP and DEHP in bottled water attributable to migration of phthalates from respective plastic bottles.
authors.affiliation: Shannon Applied Biotechnology Centre, Limerick Institute of Technology, Moylish Park, Limerick, Ireland. Electronic address: Paz.Otero@lit.ie.
authors.forename: Paz
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Otero
authors.affiliation: Shannon Applied Biotechnology Centre, Limerick Institute of Technology, Moylish Park, Limerick, Ireland.
authors.forename: Sushanta Kumar
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Saha
authors.affiliation: Shannon Applied Biotechnology Centre, Limerick Institute of Technology, Moylish Park, Limerick, Ireland.
authors.forename: Siobhan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Moane
authors.affiliation: Reagecon Diagnostics Limited Shannon Free Zone, Shannon, Co. Clare Ireland.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Barron
authors.affiliation: Reagecon Diagnostics Limited Shannon Free Zone, Shannon, Co. Clare Ireland.
authors.forename: Gerard
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Clancy
authors.affiliation: Shannon Applied Biotechnology Centre, Limerick Institute of Technology, Moylish Park, Limerick, Ireland.
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Murray
mesh_terms: D060766:Drinking Water / Q000737:chemistry*; D018857:Food Packaging; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*; D016014:Linear Models; D010795:Phthalic Acids / Q000032:analysis*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
chemical_list: D060766:Drinking Water; D010795:Phthalic Acids
keywords: Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS); Phthalate esters; Water samples