The Malaysian Journal of Analytical Sciences Vol 15 No 2 (2011): 167 -174

 

 

 

DETERMINATION OF SIX PHTHALATES IN POLYPROPYLENE CONSUMER PRODUCTS BY SONICATION-ASSISTED

EXTRACTION/GC-MS METHODS

 

Chong Kian Wei*, Loke Chui Fung and Michelle Pang

 

Chemistry and Biology Division,

 School of Arts and Science, Tunku Abdul Rahman College,

 Jalan Genting Kelang, Setapak, 53300 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

 

*Corresponding author: chongkw@mail.tarc.edu.my

 

 

Abstract

Studies on determination of six kinds of phthalates, i.e. dimethyl phthalate (DMP), diethyl phthalate (DEP), dibutyl phthalate (DBP), benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP), di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), and di-n-octyl phthalate (DnOP), in three kinds of plastic containers for food use, including food container, instant noodle cup and snack container, by gas chromatography in combination with mass spectrometry detector (GC-MS) in electronic ionization mode with selected-ion monitoring (SIM) acquisition method (GC-MS(EI-SIM)) have been carried out. Extraction, clean-up and analysis methods have been developed and optimized. Determination of samples were performed after sonication-assisted extraction with 1:9 toluene and dichloromethane, clean-up with Bio-Beads S-X8 gel-permeation column and analyzed by GC-MS methods. The characteristic ions, 163, 194 for DMP; 149, 177, 222 for DEP; 149, 233, 251 for DBP; 91, 149, 206 for BBP; 149, 176, 193 for DEHP; 149, 167, 279 for DNOP were chosen for quantitative studies. These techniques are possible to detect phthalates at the level of 1-70 mg/kg.  The overall recoveries were 79.2-91.1% with relative standard deviation (R.S.D.) values at 3.1-11.3%. Only DEHP was detected in the studied samples.

 

Keywords: Phthalates; Polypropylene Products; Sonication-assisted extraction; GC-MS (EI-SIM); Recoveries

 

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