ANALYSIS OF PERSISTENT, MOBILE, AND TOXIC PLASTIC ADDITIVES IN LEACHATES USING HIGH PERFORMANCE LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY WITH QUANTITATIVE TIME-OF-FLIGHT MASS SPECTROMETRY
- Date
- April 24, 2023
- Time
- 9:30 AM EDT - 1:30 PM EDT
- Location
- KHE225
- Open To
- Event open to Students, Faculty, Staff, Post-Doctoral Fellows, Public
- Contact
- Sarah Sabatinos ssabatinos@torontomu.ca
Candidate: Eric Fries
Supervisor: Dr. Roxana Suehring
ABSTRACT
Plastic additives are a diverse group of chemical compounds added to plastic products to give them their unique physical-chemical properties. Persistent, mobile, and toxic (PMT) plastic additives are a highly polar, environmentally stable sub-group of plastic additives that can pose a significant, long-term risk to the aquatic environment. Despite the threat they pose, they remain largely unregulated and under-studied, presenting a need for dedicated analytical methodology and leaching studies. This thesis investigated the leaching and analysis of PMT plastic additives from 18 plastic products using an optimized leaching protocol and novel analysis method utilizing high performance liquid chromatography with quantitative time-of-flight mass spectrometry (HPLC-QToF-MS). A total of 486 PMT plastic additive suspect hits were measured across the 18 plastic products, 54 of which were unique. The results from this thesis provide the tools to measure PMT plastic additives and assess their leaching in an environmentally relevant matrix.
