ANALYSIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL TOXIC SUBSTANCES IN ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC PRODUCTS BY ULTRA HIGH PERFORMANCE LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY WITH TANDEM TRIPLE QUADRUPOLE MASS SPECTROMETRY AND ACCELERATED SOLVENT EXTRACTION

Abstract

Bisphenol A, tetrabromobisphenol A, nonylphenol, and hexabromocyclododecane are common environmental toxic substances in electrical and electronic products. BPA and NP are defined as endocrine disrupting chemicals that have estrogenic effects, while TBBP-A and HBCD stereoisomers (α-, β-, γ-) are the most widely used brominated flame retardants besides polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). In this study, a method by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography with tandem triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (UHPLC-ESI MS/MS) and accelerated solvent extraction has been developed for the simultaneous determination of these four compounds. UHPLC-ESI MS/MS parameters as well as accelerated solvent extraction parameters were optimized. Samples were extracted with 1:1 methanol:toluene (V/V) using an ASE 350 accelerated solvent extraction system and were injected into the UHPLC-ESI MS/MS system. The analysis could be rapidly achieved within 8 min and the three stereoisomers of HBCD could be baseline separated. Good linearities were obtained for all analytes (the correlation coefficients were above 0.99) in the range of 2 µg L−1–1000 µg L−1, with the detection limits 0.25 µg L−1–1.5 µg L−1 and quantification limits 1.0 µg L−1–5.0 µg L−1. The proposed method was applied to the analysis of six samples and the recoveries of all the analytes satisfactorily rangd from 88.7% to 105.5%.