Determination of benzotriazoles and benzothiazoles in human urine by UHPLC-TQMS

Benzotriazole (BTR) and benzothiazole (BTH) derivatives are extensively applied in industrial processes and consumer products, and are thus frequently detected in the environmental matrices. Due to their potential estrogenic effects reported in animal studies, the assessment of human exposure to BTRs and BTHs is important. In this study, a method was developed and validated to determine six BTRs and five BTHs in human urine by using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with a triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (UHPLC-TQMS) in positive electrospray ionization mode. After de-conjugation by β-glucuronidase, urine samples were liquid-liquid extracted for the measurement of total concentrations of BTRs and BTHs. The linearity, detection limit, precision, recovery, accuracy and matrix effect were evaluated. The limits of detection were less than 0.5 ng/mL. The validated method demonstrated good precision (RSD% < 15%), linearity (R2 > 0.99), recovery (>80%) and accuracy (80-100%). The method was successfully applied for the analysis of 22 human urine samples. Four out of eleven targeted compounds were detected in more than half of participants at ng/mL levels.