The problem of the presence of trace organic pollutants in food is of growing importance due to increasing awareness about their impact on newborns, infants and adults of reproductive age. Despite the fact that packaged food products offer many advantages, packaging can be a source of contamination for stored food. Thus, monitoring such pollution in food is of high importance. In this work, a novel methodology based on the solvent extraction of porous membrane-packed samples followed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry was applied for the determination of bisphenol A diglycidyl ether (BADGE), bisphenol F diglycidyl ether (BFDGE) and their derivatives in packed vegetables. Several parameters of the extraction process were optimized, including the volume and type of extraction solvent as well as the sonication time. Due to advantages such as simplicity of use, short analysis time, and a reduction in the required amount solvent, the developed procedure can be considered green. In addition, the developed methodology was characterized by good validation parameters. Limit if quantitation (LOQ) was found to be in the range of 0.8 to 1.5 ng/g. The obtained recoveries varied from 78.3% to 111.2%. The repeatability of the extraction ranged between 0.6% and 5.8% (RSD). The proposed method was successfully applied to determine the presence of BADGE, BFDGE and their derivative compounds in the vegetable samples stored in different types of containers. The obtained data indicate that the majority of investigated samples were contaminated by chlorinated and hydroxyl derivatives of BADGE.
Keywords: Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry; Packaged vegetables; Solid phase microextraction; Trace organic pollutants analyses.
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