Dispersive solid-phase extraction of bisphenols migrated from plastic food packaging materials with cetyltrimethylammonium bromide-intercalated zinc oxide

Abstract

The migration of bisphenols (BPs) can take place from plastic packaging materials into freshly cooked takeaway food, especially at high temperatures. In this study, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide-intercalated zinc oxide (ZnO@CTAB) was developed and used to extract the migration of BPs (bisphenol A and bisphenol AF) from disposable plastic materials to contained food simulates. Several experimental parameters that influence extraction efficiency were investigated. Under optimal conditions, a sensitive dispersive solid-phase extraction method based on ZnO@CTAB was proposed for the analysis of BPs coupled with ultra-high performance liquid chromatography and time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The method exhibited good linearity of calibration, high recovery (97.63–109.33%), low limits of detection 0.027–0.030 μg L−1, and acceptable precisions. The developed method was used to carry out a migration test from two disposable plastic bags and a disposable plastic container, using distilled water at 100 °C as a hot liquid food simulant. The migration concentrations of bisphenol AF was found to be 0.42 μg L−1 and 0.86 μg L−1 for the two types of disposable plastic bags, and the concentration of bisphenol A was 0.49 μg L−1 for disposable plastic container. The proposed method was also applied to investigate the migration of BPAF from the disposable plastic bags to different food simulants, revealing that the release of BPAF levels depended on the polarity of the liquid food components.