Determination of perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in human hair by liquid chromatography-high accurate mass spectrometry (LC-QTOF)

Biomonitoring of perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) in hair is conventionally achieved by SPE extraction and liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole analysis, with sensitivities in the range of ng/g. The aim of this study was to develop and validate a rapid method to detect 20 perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) in human hair from general populations by SPE purification and liquid-chromatography coupled to accurate mass measurement (LC-QTOF). The obtained sensitivities (LOQ), linearity and RSD accuracies were respectively in the range of 0.07–0.5 ng/g, 0.1 (or 0.2 or 0.5)-10 ng/g, 1–16%. To verify the applicability of the method, 11 hair samples from volunteers were tested. The detected PFAS were PFBA (range 0.24–14.6 ng/g), PFBS (0.496 ng/g), PFOA (range 0.08–0.178 ng/g) and PFOS (