ISBN 9783843949835

978-3-8439-4983-5, Reihe Lebensmittelchemie

Jannik Tristan Sprengel
Chlorinated paraffins in household kitchens - Understanding a high production volume pollutant

211 Seiten, Dissertation Universität Hohenheim Stuttgart-Hohenheim (2021), Softcover, A5

Zusammenfassung / Abstract

Chlorinated paraffins (CPs) are one of the most widespread anthropogenic pollutants throughout the world. Due to their persistent and lipophilic nature, CPs can be transported far from their initial point of use. Consequently they are ubiquitously present in environmental matrices around the world. It has been shown that industrial and urban environments and especially indoor environments are regularly polluted with CPs. Recent studies have found unexpectedly high CP amounts in fat from kitchen hoods, on baking oven doors and in hand blenders.

Structurally, CPs are mixtures of thousands of structurally different polychlorinated n-alkanes, produced by radical chlorination of n-alkane feedstocks. Usually they are classified by the chain length ranges of the carbon skeleton into short-chain CPs (C10- to C13-CPs, SCCPs), medium-chain CPs (C14- to C17-CPs, MCCPs) and long-chain CPs (>C17-CPs, LCCPs). Knowledge on their actual composition and specific structures is very limited. Currently CP quantification is carried out with various different analytical methods and instrumental setups, which are difficult to compare. Furthermore, the lack of representative and well-defined standards compromises the exact quantification of CPs.

In order to improve the analytical understanding of complex CP mixtures various single chain length CP standards were synthesized and characterized by spectroscopic methods. These standards were also used to study and improve the CP quantification by means of gas chromatography with electron capture negative ion mass spectrometry (GC/ECNI-MS) and, together with technical CP products, they were applied in subsequent laboratory experiments and in a bioassay. Since the kitchen proved to be a reservoir of CP sources, another focus of this thesis was on the identification of further potential CP sources in that location and evaluating their potential relevance for man and the environment.