Simultaneous determination of the free and total forms of nonylphenol, nonylphenol monoethoxylate, and nonylphenol diethoxylate in human urine by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

Abstract

Nonylphenol (NP), nonylphenol monoethoxylate (NP1EO), and nonylphenol diethoxylate (NP2EO) are widely used in various daily products and have been cataloged as endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Due to their high lipophilicity and low biodegradability, these compounds remain in the environment and enter the human body through the food chain. Growing concerns regarding the potential negative effects of NP, NP1EO, and NP2EO on human health have raised the need for biomonitoring to investigate human exposure to these compounds. In this study, a simultaneous analysis method using solid-phase extraction (SPE) combined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC–MS) was established by controlling the background contamination of NP, NP1EO, and NP2EO, which are ubiquitous in laboratory environments. The proposed method showed proper linearity of over 0.999 and a recovery greater than 85.8% for all analytes. Accuracy and precision were verified in ranges of 92.97–116.30% and 0.65–9.29%, respectively. The detection limits for NP, NP1EO, and NP2EO were 0.0363 μg L−1, 0.0401 μg L−1, and 0.0364 μg L−1, respectively, which were suitable for determining the trace analytes in human urine. Therefore, this simple and integrated analytical method was applied to measure the free and total forms of the target analytes in 25 human urine samples collected in Korea. Overall, free NP, NP1EO, and NP2EO were detected with average contents of 3.94 ± 4.14 μg L−1, 4.63 ± 2.62 μg L−1, and 0.293 ± 0.638 μg L−1, respectively, and with total NP, NP1EO, and NP2EO contents of 6.14 ± 8.24 μg L−1, 5.99 ± 2.91 μg L−1, and 0.806 ± 1.10 μg L−1, respectively. These data showed that these compounds are prevalent in human urine, and indicate the need for further studies. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE part of Springer Nature.