Abstract
Microplastics (MPs) and nanoplastics (NPs) are widely spread in the environment, generating significant concern due to their potential impact on environmental health. Marine species usually ingest plastic fragments, mistaking them for food. Many toxic compounds, such as plastic additives that are not chemically bound to the plastic matrix, can be released from MPs and NPs and reach humans via the food chain. This paper highlights the development and validation of a straightforward solid-liquid extraction clean-up procedure in combination with a matrix solid-phase dispersion method using high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) detection, enabling facile, precise, and reliable identification and quantitation of a total of six bisphenols and phthalates in gilthead sea breams. Under the optimized conditions, the developed method showed good linearity (R(2) > 0.993) for all target compounds. The recoveries obtained were between 70 and 92%. The relative standard deviations (RSDs) for reproducibility (inter-day) and repeatability (intra-day) were less than 9% and 10%, respectively. The limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) for the target compounds ranged from 0.11 to 0.68 µg/kg and from 0.37 to 2.28 µg/kg, respectively. A new, efficient extraction methodology for the determination of BPA, BPS, BPF, DBP, DEP, and DHEP in gilthead seabream has been optimized and validated.