Simultaneous determination of 16 brominated flame retardants in food and feed of animal origin by fast gas chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry using atmospheric pressure chemical ionisation

•A new GC/APCI/MS/MS method was developed for fast BFR analysis.•The list of BFRs includes 8 PBDEs such as BDE #209 and 8 novel/emerging BFR.•Short capillary columns were assessed to prevent heavier BFRs’ degradation.•The method was validated for food and feed of animal origin.

A gas chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method using atmospheric pressure chemical ionisation was developed for the monitoring of 16 brominated flame retardants (7 usually monitored polybromodiphenylethers (PBDEs) and BDE #209 and 8 additional emerging and novel BFRs) in food and feed of animal origin. The developed analytical method has decreased the run time by three compared to conventional strategies, using a 2.5 m column length (5% phenyl stationary phase, 0.1 mm i.d., 0.1 μm f.t.), a pulsed split injection (1:5) with carrier gas helium flow rate at 0.48 mL min−1 in one run of 20 min. For most BFRs, analytical data were compared with the current analytical strategy relying on GC/EI/HRMS (double sector, R = 10000 at 10% valley). Performances in terms of sensitivity were found to meet the Commission recommendation (118/2014/EC) for nBFRs. GC/APCI/MS/MS represents a promising alternative for multi-BFRs analysis in complex matrices, in that it allows the monitoring of a wider list of contaminants in a single injection and a shorter run time.