Suspect and non-target screening of chemicals in household cleaning products, and their toxicity assessment

Abstract

In this study, 31 household spray-type cleaning products from 10 categories were examined to identify the substances contained in these products and evaluate their resulting toxicities. After substance detection via LC-QTOF-MS, suspect and non-target screenings were performed using UNIFI software. A total of 48 substances were identified during suspect screening. Among them, surfactant (freq. 22/31(71.0%)), plasticizer (freq. 23/31(74.2%)), antioxidant (freq. 20/31(64.5%)) were detected with high frequencies. Among the 48 compounds, tributyl citrate acetate was the most frequently detected (frequency 13/31, 41.9%). In addition, 51 substances were identified via non-target analysis. Among them, oleamide, a type of surfactant, showed a high frequency of detection (22/31(71.0%)). The toxicities of the 98 substances (suspect: 47 (except for confidence level 5) and non-target: 51) identified were evaluated using the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) database and Toxtree. Among them, 20 substances were classified as a substance of caution. The risk assessment for 3 substances identified with references standards was also performed. The suspect and non-target screening technique proved to be a useful method that can be applied when there are many non-specific chemicals and their components in the consumer products are not well known.