GC/MS-Orbitrap: an application for the characterization of organic plastic additives

International audienceEnvironmental pollution from plastics and microplastics (MPs) is a threat to the environment and wildlife on multiple aspects regarding exposition of different hazards. One of them is the impact of the organic plastic additives (OPAs). Various chemical additives can be added to polymers during the manufacturing process to modify and improve their physical properties for example. The analysis of OPAs has shown a growing importance since their use has become controversial as some of the additives were found to be toxic to marine organism and human being. In order to have a better understanding of the chemical impact of these additives, it is important to identify and, ideally quantify the ones included in the polymeric matrices. The analysis of OPAs and polymers is an analytical challenge due to the diversity of their chemical composition and the fact that they are most of the time several into a single plastic. Implementing easy and quick screening analysis methods, able to analyze plastic additives, have become a focus of interest. The goal of this study is to develop such a method, with pyrolysis coupled to a gas chromatography and mass spectrometery (Py-GC/MS) for the identification and, if possible, the quantification of OPAs and, consecutively, of the polymeric matrix they are included in. A first step consisted in constituting a database in GC/MS-Orbitrap with a wide variety of plastic additives. So far, a common method in GC/MS-Orbitrap has been developed for the analysis of various plastic additives with standards solution. The selection of the main additives studied was based on their use and toxicity