Nowadays, emerging contaminants (EC) are of great interest because of their potential environmental risk. These compounds have not been regulated yet as their toxicity and concentration in the environment are not well known. Among EC, personal care products (PCPs) are found in items used daily for hygiene and skincare like fragrances, facial creams, soaps, among others. They have been regarded as an important group of EC due to their continuous release in aquatic environments. Environmental monitoring requires several bioindicator organisms like fish to establish significant intersite differences. Consequently, there is currently a need to develop suitable in vivo methods to reduce the number of organisms killed and not alter the natural balance of the ecosystem. For this purpose, solid-phase microextraction (SPME) is a promising technique for determining organic contaminants in fish. In this work, a method was developed for the simultaneous determination of two groups of personal care products, UV filters and polycyclic aromatic musks, in tilapia (Oreochromis urolepis homorum) by in vivo solid-phase microextraction (in vivo SPME) followed by gas chromatography with programmable split/splitless injector coupled to mass spectrometry (PSSI-GC-MS). The sampling rate calibration method was used to quantitate the analytes. The method was applied to trace the uptake and elimination of the PCPs by juvenile tilapia. After three days of fish exposure in spiked water, all analytes were bioaccumulated in muscle tissue in different concentrations depending on their physicochemical properties. The UV filters oxybenzone and padimate-O were the most and the least absorbed, respectively. Interestingly, on the fourth day of the uptake assay, tilapias started the elimination of the contaminants even when the spiking of the water was performed twice a day. The proposed approach is a miniaturized, simple, and non-lethal method to determine emerging contaminants in fish.

Non-lethal monitoring of personal care products in fish muscle by in vivo solid-phase microextraction followed by GC-MS

Fall 2022 abstracts, posters, and presentations will launch in mid-September.

ACS Fall 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.