Determination of Fragrance Allergens in Plastic Toys by Full Evaporation Headspace with Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

A rapid method based on a full evaporation headspace gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (FEHS-GC-MS) for determination of 54 fragrance allergens in ABS plastic toys was developed. The samples were extracted by dissolution-precipitation approach. In this way, a complete extraction of fragrances could be obtained from plastic samples. Then 40 mu L of supernatant was transferred into a headspace vial. Under the optimized headspace conditions (equilibration temperature = 200 degrees C; equilibration time = 6 min; pressing pressure= 80 kPa), the fragrances and solvent were evaporated to gaseous state quickly and reached dynamic equilibrium within 6 min, then 1 mL of gas in the quantitative loop was introduced to GC-MS. The separations were performed on a DB-35MS column and then quantified by external standard method. As the plastic matrix was deposited at the bottom of the vial, the results showed that the interference caused by different sample matrices was negligible. The proposed method exhibited sufficient sensitivity with LOQ of 0. 5-15 mg/kg for all fragrances. The calibration curves showed good linearity in the range of 0. 5-750 mg/kg with the correlation coefficients greater than 0. 9987. The average recoveries ranged from 81. 0% to 135. 7%, and the RSD (n = 6) varied from 1. 7% to 16. 8%. Finally, the method was applied to monitor the fragrances in 20 commercial toys. This study provides a good reference for rapidly determining the volatile organic compounds and semi-volatile organic compounds in plastic samples.