Determination of phthalate acid esters (PAEs) in bottled water distributed in tehran: a health risk assessment study

ABSTRACT

In this study, the levels of six PAEs [bis (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), butyl benzyl phthalate (BBP), dibutyl phthalate (DBP), diethyl phthalate (DEP), dimethyl phthalate (DMP) and di-n-octyl phthalate (DNOP)] were determined from four types of bottled water)non-carbonated, mineral, carbonated and carbonated flavoured) using MSPE method (magnetic solid phase extraction) and GC/MS technique (gas chromatography/mass spectrometry). The mean concentration of total PAEs was 6.11 ± 1.43 µg/L. The mean concentration of DEHP was 2.22 ± 0.76 µg/L and was lower than the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) standard level in drinking water (6 μg/L for DEHP). The highest mean level of total PAE was observed in carbonated water (7.43 ± 2.03 μg/L) and the lowest mean level of total PAE was observed in non-carbonated water (5.15 ± 0.41 μg/L). The Monte Carlo method was applied to calculate the Target Hazard Quotient (THQ), Chronic Daily Intake (CDI), and Incremental Life Cancer Risk (ILCR) indexes. In all samples, the rank order of the estimated THQ values based on the 95% percentile was DEHP (4.77E-4) > DBP (2.25E-5) > BBP (1.99E-5) > DEP (2.75E-6) and there would be unlikely non-carcinogenic risks for consumers (THQ<1). The incremental lifetime cancer risk assessment revealed that phthalate esters (DEHP) in evaluated bottled water samples did not pose a serious concern to humans.

KEYWORDS:

• Bottled water
• health risk assessment
• MSPE-GC/MS
• phthalate acid ester (PAEs)

Acknowledgments

This research has been supported by the Beheshti University of Medical Sciences (SBUMS) and Tehran University of medical Sciences (TUMS).

Author’s contributions

Nabi Shariatifar: Conceptualization, Supervision, Design of study, Writing- Reviewing and Editing. Sara Sohrabvandi: Design of study, Writing- Reviewing and Editing. Abbas Mehraie: Data curation, Writing- Reviewing and Editing. Majid Arabameri: Visualization, Investigation, Saftware, Methodology. Software, Validation, Amir Mohammad Mortazavian: Methodology. Software, Validation, Mojtaba Moazzen: Data curation, Writing- Original draft preparation. Fatemeh Sheikh: Saftware, Methodology.

Ethical approval

‘This study does not involve any human or animal testing’ or “This study was approved by the Tehran University of Medical Science

Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.