Development of Analytical Method for Volatile Methylsiloxanes in Fish Samples and Its Application to Environmental Pollution Assessment

Abstract

In this study, a purge and trap (PT) method was employed to quantify seven volatile methylsiloxanes (VMSs) in fish samples. The clean-up conditions for the fish extract were optimized, resulting in method detection and quantitation limits across a series of analyses ranging from 0.3 to 0.8 ng g⁻¹ wet weight (ww) and from 0.8 to 2.6 ng g⁻¹ ww, respectively. To evaluate the effectiveness of the developed method, it was applied to analyze fish samples from both river and marine environments, demonstrating its applicability for samples with lipid content of up to approximately 15 %. The total concentrations of VMSs in the fish samples ranged from 4.7 to 10300 ng g⁻¹ ww, with D5 being the predominant compound. The highest concentration was found in the fish sample collected near a sewage treatment plant discharge. The ranges of bioaccumulation factors for most VMSs overlapped or exceeded the high bioconcentration criteria, suggesting these compounds possess a high bioaccumulation potency. This is the first study to report VMS occurrence in fish samples from the Japanese river environment.