Micro-QuEChERS extraction coupled to GC-MS for a fast determination of Bisphenol A in human urine

Bisphenol A (BPA) is considered an endocrine disruptor and public concern over BPA exposure has been raised. Several studies have assessed human exposure to this plasticizer, confirming its ubiquitous presence and highlighting children as a public of special concern. A simple, efficient, cheap and green analytical procedure is reported within this paper. This paper reports, for the first time, the development of a modified Micro-QuEChERS (Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged and Safe) method coupled to gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) as a new strategy for the efficient extraction and determination of Bisphenol A in human urine samples. Several parameters that are known to influence extraction were optimized. Good linearity was achieved at the studied concentration range (1-50 μg/L), with a correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.998. The optimized method proved to be accurate (≥74% recovery), reproducible (<11% relative standard deviation) and sensitive for BPA determination (detection limit of 0.13 μg/L and quantification limit of 0.43 μg/L). The analytical procedure was applied to the analyses of 12 urine samples collected from children living in the North/Center region of Portugal. BPA was detected in all the analyzed samples in concentrations ranging from 1.5 μg/L to 48.9 μg/L. The proposed methodology is suitable for the determination of BPA in urine samples in the framework of biomonitoring studies and bioanalytical analyses, applying GC-MS detection.