Determination of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) as persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in polish food using semipermeable membranes (SPMs)

The aim of this study was to determine the PBDE contents in selected food products available on the Polish market: butter, eggs, chocolate, pork fat, beef fat, and three kinds of fish: carp, salmon and cod. Therefore, a two-stage (for fish) and three-stage (for all the other food products) methods of sample cleanup was developed with the use of the GC-MS technique, using semipermeable membranes (SPM) in one of the stages. In all of the samples six dominating PBDE congeners: BDE-28, BDE-47, BDE-99, BDE-100, BDE-153, and BDE-154 were determinated. PBDE contents in the Polish butter ranged from 55 to 174 pg/g of fat. The results for the fish samples (salmon and cod) were shown to be highly variable. The analysed salmon samples contained for example 377-5,340 pg/g of the wet muscle tissue (1,850-26,700 pg/g of fat,, respectively).