Simultaneous determination of 31 endocrine disrupting chemicals in fish plasma by solid‐phase extraction coupled with ultra‐performance liquid chromatography‐tandem mass spectrometry

Abstract

Solid phase extraction combined with ultra‐performance liquid chromatography‐tandem mass spectrometry was developed for the simultaneous determination of 31 endocrine‐disrupting chemicals in fish plasma. The strong anion exchange/primary‐secondary amine cartridge and the mixed cation exchange cartridge were used in tandem instead of using a single mixed cation exchange cartridge for sample purification. Suitable eluents were selected for each of the two cartridges: 4.5% ammonia/acetonitrile solution for cartridges in tandem and acetone:n‐hexane (V:V = 3:7) for the strong anion exchange/primary‐secondary amine cartridge alone. With this optimized Solid phase extraction method, the recoveries of 31 endocrine disrupting chemicals were between 43.0% and 131.3%, the method detection limits were 0.45 to 1.35 ng/ml, and the limits of quantitation were 1.50–4.50 ng/ml. The innovative pretreatment method that connects two cartridges in tandem is well positioned to mitigate the matrix effects of fish plasma, thereby improving the accuracy of multiclass endocrine‐disrupting chemicals determination. The significance of this method is to facilitate the application of the fish plasma model for the environmental risk assessment of endocrine‐disrupting chemicals.

Sensor technologies for the detection and monitoring of endocrine-disrupting chemicals

“…Monitoring and detection of EDCs compounds, as noted earlier, have been traditionally performed with analytical methods such as gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) ( Azzouz et al, 2020 ), Liquid chromatography ( Zatrochova et al, 2022 ), ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry ( Zhou et al, 2022 ), capillary electrophoresis ( Chen et al, 2021 ) surface plasmon resonance ( Bakhshpour and Denizli, 2020 ), and solid phase extraction ( Zhang et al, 2020 ). Although conventional analytical methods are standardized, highly sensitive and selective, these approaches are time-consuming, have complex protocols, often require sample pre-treatment and sophisticated instrumentation, trained and skilled personnel.…”