Fast and reliable determination of phthalic acid esters in soil and lettuce samples based on QuEChERS GC–MS/MS

Phthalates are commonly used as plasticizers, and solvents in industry and households. We propose an application of the QuEChERS method for the determination of six PAEs in the soil and lettuce (roots and leaves) by GC–MS/MS. The QuEChERS method validation procedure was performed and good linearity (>0.997), recovery (97.2–99.1 %), very low detection limits (0.09–0.43 ng/g), and satisfactory inter- and intraday precision (∼4%) were obtained confirming that QuEChERS GC–MS/MS applied for PAEs determination in the environmental samples is a cheap and environmentally friendly method. In general, the higher the number of carbon atoms in PAEs, the higher the percentage noted in the lettuce roots. At higher PAEs concentration (60 ng/g) the main bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) sink were roots whereas at lower concentrations (30 ng/g) most of DEHP was noted in lettuce leaves implying that the fate of PAEs was governed not by the chemical structure of PAEs but rather partitioning (logKow).