Target Analysis of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) in Consumer Products and Total Content of Polycyclic Aromatic Compounds (PACs)

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe fabrication of consumer products is tightly linked to the usage of polymeric materials. The application of mineral oil products as plasticizers or lubricants in this manufacture is very common and so is the addition of carbon black for coloring and abrasion resistance purposes. Whereas mineral oils often contain highly alkylated aromatic species, alkylation of polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs) is rather low or even absent in the case of carbon black. Since they are broadly applied in various products, consumers might get exposed to PACs, for instance, via dermal contacts. Here, we characterized several commodities not only via the common way of targeted analysis for their contents on PAHs, but also with regard to its total amounts of unsubstituted and substituted aromatic hydrocarbons. The methods applied to analyze consumer products were as follows: (i) online coupling of liquid chromatography to gas chromatography with flame ionization detection (LC-GC-FID) for quantification of total PAH and mineral oil saturated hydrocarbon (MOSH) contents; (ii) coupling of tandem mass spectrometry to gas chromatography (GC-MS/MS) to quantify occasionally occurring PAHs with high specificity; and (iii) 2D gas chromatography coupled to time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GCxGC-MS) to characterize the complex mixtures concerning analytes’ ring systems and degrees of alkylation. We found PAH contents in the range of parts per million (ppm) in consumer products, while overall amounts of aromatics were in the percent range.