Determination of parabens in house dust by pressurised hot water extraction followed by stir bar sorptive extraction and thermal desorption–gas chromatography–mass spectrometry

This study describes the development of a new method for determining p-hydroxybenzoic esters (parabens) in house dust. This optimised method was based on the pressurised hot water extraction (PHWE) of house dust, followed by the acetylation of the extracted parabens, stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) with a polydimethylsiloxane stir bar, and finally analysis using thermal desorption–gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (TD–GC–MS). The combination of SBSE and PHWE allows the analytes to be preconcentrated and extracted from the aqueous extract in a single step with minimal manipulation of the sample. Furthermore the in situ acetylation of parabens prior to SBSE improved their extraction efficiency and their GC–MS signal. The method showed recoveries of between 40 and 80%, good linearity, repeatability and reproducibility (<10% RSD, at 100 ng g−1, n = 5), low limits of detection (from 1.0 ng g−1 for propyl paraben to 2.1 ng g−1 for methyl paraben) and quantification (from 3.3 ng g−1 for propyl paraben to 8.5 ng g−1 for methyl paraben). The proposed method was applied to the analysis of house dust samples. All the target parabens were found in the samples. Methyl and propyl parabens were the most abundant, with concentrations up to 2440 ng g−1 and 910 ng g−1, respectively. The high levels of parabens found in the samples confirm the importance of determining organic contaminants in indoor environments.