Determination of 14 Environmental Hormones in Workplace Air by Ultra- High Performance Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry

A sampling clip fitted with glass fiber filter membrane was used to collect air sample from a workplace, and the sampled glass fiber filter membrane was eluted ultrasonically with 5 mL of methanol-water mixture at a volume ratio of 8∶2 for 10 min. 14 environmental hormones in the obtained solution were determined by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry, using Waters Symmetry C₁₈ column as the stationary phase and the mixture of acetonitrile and water at different volume ratios as the mobile phase for gradient elution. As shown by the results, linear relationships between values of peak area of quantitative ions and mass concentrations of 14 environmental hormones were found in definite ranges, with detection limits (3S/N) of 0.1 μg·L^-1 for estrone, diethylstilbestrol, triclosan, triclocarban and tetrachlorobisphenol A, and 0.5 μg·L^-1 for 17α-estradiol, 17β-estradiol, 17α-ethinylestradiol, estriol, bisphenol A, tetrabromobisphenol A, nonylphenol, 4-n-octylphenol and bisphenol F. Test for recovery was made by standard addition method, giving results in the range of 67.6%-119%, with RSDs (n=6) of the determined values obtained by tests for repeatability and reproducibility in the ranges of 1.2%-11% and 1.4%-12%, respectively.