title: Bromine content and brominated flame retardants in food and animal feed from the UK.
abstract: Current occurrence data for polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) and hexa-bromocyclododecane (HBCD) measured in most commonly consumed foods (n = 156) and animal feeds (n = 51) sampled in the UK, demonstrates an ongoing ubiquity of these contaminants in human and animal diets. PBDE concentrations for the sum of 17 measured congeners ranged from 0.02 ng/g to 8.91 ng/g whole weight for food, and 0.11 ng/g to 9.63 ng/g whole weight for animal feeds. The highest concentration ranges, and mean values were detected in fish, processed foods and fish feeds. HBCD diastereomers (alpha-HBCD was the most commonly detected) generally occurred at lower concentrations (from <0.01 ng/g to 10.1 ng/g for food and <0.01 ng/g to 0.66 ng/g for animal feed) and less frequently than PBDEs, but tetrabromobisphenol A which was also measured, was rarely detected. The total bromine content of the samples was also determined in an attempt to use a mass balance approach to investigate some of these samples for the occurrence of novel and emerging BFRs. Although the approach was further refined by measuring organic bromine content, the concentrations of bromine were too high (in most cases by orders of magnitude) to allow use of the approach. A selected sub-set of samples was screened by GC-MS, for the presence of novel/emerging brominated flame retardants (PBT, TBX, PBEB, DBHCTD, HCTBPH and OBTMPI) but these were not detected at the higher limits of detection that result from full scan (GC-MS) screening. This data will contribute to the EU wide risk assessment on these contaminants.
authors.affiliation: Fera Science Ltd, National Agri-Food Innovation Campus, Sand Hutton, York, YO41 1LZ, UK. Electronic address: alwyn.fernandes@fera.gsi.gov.uk.
authors.forename: A R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Fernandes
authors.affiliation: Food Standards Agency, Aviation House, 125 Kingsway, London, WC2B, 6NH, UK.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mortimer
authors.affiliation: Fera Science Ltd, National Agri-Food Innovation Campus, Sand Hutton, York, YO41 1LZ, UK.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rose
authors.affiliation: Fera Science Ltd, National Agri-Food Innovation Campus, Sand Hutton, York, YO41 1LZ, UK.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Fera Science Ltd, National Agri-Food Innovation Campus, Sand Hutton, York, YO41 1LZ, UK.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Panton
authors.affiliation: Fera Science Ltd, National Agri-Food Innovation Campus, Sand Hutton, York, YO41 1LZ, UK.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Garcia-Lopez
mesh_terms: D000821:Animal Feed / Q000032:analysis*; D000818:Animals; D001966:Bromine / Q000032:analysis*; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D005399:Fishes; D005411:Flame Retardants / Q000032:analysis*; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000032:analysis*; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry; D006842:Hydrocarbons, Brominated / Q000032:analysis*; D006113:United Kingdom
chemical_list: D005411:Flame Retardants; D006842:Hydrocarbons, Brominated; D001966:Bromine
keywords: Emerging BFRs; GC-TOF-MS; HBCD; HRMS; Novel BFRs; PBDE