Contemporary carbon content of bis (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate in butter

The fraction of naturally produced bis (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), a ubiquitous plasticizer known to contaminate packaged foods, was determined for each of five 1.10 kg samples of unsalted market butter by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS). After extraction and concentration enrichment with liquid-liquid extraction, flash column chromatography, and preparative-scale high performance liquid chromatography, each sample provided ≈250 μg extracts of DEHP with carbon purity ranging from 92.5 ± 1.2% (n = 3, 1σ) to 97.1 ± 0.8% (n = 3, 1σ) as measured with gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS). After corrections for method blank DEHP, co-eluting compounds, and unidentified carbon, the mean fraction of naturally produced DEHP in butter was determined to be 0.16 ± 0.12 (n = 5, 1σ). To our knowledge, this is the first report of the contemporary fraction of DEHP isolated from market butter in the U.S.