A comprehensive gas chromatography coupled to high resolution mass spectrometry based method for the determination of polybrominated diphenyl ethers and their hydroxylated and methoxylated metabolites in environmental samples

We report here an efficient and comprehensive analytical methodology based on gas chromatography with high resolution mass spectrometry (GC–HRMS) to simultaneously determine PBDEs from mono to deca brominated and hydroxy (OH-) and methoxy (MeO-) PBDE metabolites in environmental samples, particularly, sediment, fish tissue and milk. Among a number of extraction and clean-up methods tested, pressurized liquid extraction followed by gel permeation chromatography and florisil clean-up proved to be simple, robust and optimized so that all target analytes (parent compounds and metabolites) were collected in a single fraction. Extracts were analyzed by GC–HRMS to identify PBDEs. Following, the same extracts were derivatized and re-analyzed by GC–HRMS to determine 11 target and 35 non-target OH- and MeO-PBDEs. Monitoring of the M+ for MeO-PBDEs and the [M−CH2CO]+ ions for derivatized OH-PBDEs at 10,000 resolution permitted unequivocal identification of the PBDE metabolites in the environmental matrices examined. The method was validated in terms of accuracy, precision, detection limits and long-term stability. The analytical precision obtained with this method was between 0.3 and 17%, and the limits of quantification were lower than 3.28 pg/g dry weight, 20.5 and 41.4 pg/g lipid weight in sediment, milk and fish, respectively. The method was applied to determine PBDEs and target and non-target metabolites in all three matrices.