Ubiquitous occurrence of chlorinated byproducts of bisphenol A and nonylphenol in bleached food contacting papers and their implications for human exposure.

The occurrence of bisphenol A (BPA), nonylphenol (NP), and their six chlorinated byproducts were investigated in 74 food contacting papers (FCPs) from China, the U.S.A., Japan, and Europe using a sensitive dansylation LC-MS/MS method. BPA (<LOQ-83 ng/g) and NP (<LOQ-5.4 ng/g) were widely detected in FCPs, while the six chlorinated byproducts were detected in less than half of the samples. The concentrations of chlorinated BPAs and chlorinated NPs in FCPs were significantly correlated with the concentrations of BPA and NP, respectively, and their concentrations mainly depended on bleaching processes in paper production. The mean concentrations of monochloro-BPA (MCBPA), dichloro-BPA (DCBPA), trichloro-BPA (TCBPA), tetrachloro-BPA (TeCBPA), monochloro-NP (MCNP), and dichloro-NP (DCNP) in bleached FCPs were 0.019 ± 0.025, 0.0033 ± 0.0059, 0.0030 ± 0.0045, 0.0081 ± 0.019, 0.23 ± 0.46, and 0.066 ± 0.11 ng/g, respectively, much higher than those (0.0021 ± 0.0020 ng/g for MCBPA, 0.00068 ± 0.00076 ng/g for DCBPA, <LOQ for TCBPA and TeCBPA, 0.006 ± 0.003 ng/g for MCNP, and <LOQ for DCNP) in unbleached FCPs. Furthermore, it was shown that BPA, NP, and some of their chlorinated byproducts could migrate from coffee filters into coffee solution with migration rates of 71 ± 10% for BPA, 2.4 ± 0.33% for NP, 47 ± 1.4% for MCBPA, and 0.35 ± 0.11% for MCNP. This is the first report on the occurrence of chlorinated derivatives of BPA and NP in FCPs and their migration, which provides important information to comprehensively understand human exposure to BPA, NP, and their chlorinated derivatives.