GI JEONG WOO (New Hazardous Substances Division, National Institute of Food and Drug Safety Evaluation)

GI JEONG WOO (New Hazardous Substances Division, National Institute of Food and Drug Safety Evaluation)

The use of plastics continues to increase worldwide, and microplastics(MPs) is also expected to increase. MPs can enter the human body through various environmental routes such as environmental air and seawater through food. Research on MPs has mainly used spectroscopic instruments such as fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) and Raman, but further research is still needed in the field of mass spectrometry. Pyrolysis-gas chromatography/mass spectromery(Py-GC/MS) allows for the quantification of MPs at low concentrations and provides accurate results even for weathered or degraded particles. This study developed a method using Py-GC/MS for MPs analysis in omega-3 dietary supplements. For mass spectrometry, the organic matter in the sample was decomposed with hydrogen peroxide, and filterated two times using steel use stainless(SUS) filter(pore size 20 μm and 1 μm). The analytical performance of the method was validated using 11 plastic standards and the limit of detection were 0.014 ~ 0.955 μg. The monitoring was performed for 12 samples and MPs were detected at an average of 18.992 μg(≥20 μm) and 14.750 μg (<20 μm and ≥1 μm). Future investigations into the accurate analysis and quantification of microplastics should place a emphasis on interlaboratory validation and recovery test.In addition, research to secure the reliability of the data through repeated measurements should also be conducted.