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MICROPOLLUTANTS AND MICROPLASTICS IN THE AQUATIC ENVIRONMENT

State of the art in the analysis of brominated flame retardants in biota and sediment: insights from the characterisation of two new certified reference materials Marina Ricci 1

&

Penka Shegunova 1 & Katrin Vorkamp 2

Received: 19 February 2020 / Accepted: 17 April 2020 # The Author(s) 2020

Abstract The Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission has recently released two new Certified Reference Materials (CRMs) for the analysis of brominated flame retardants (BFRs): the freshwater sediment ERM-CC537a and the fish tissue ERMCE102. The production of these CRMs responds to the need of expanding the offer of quality assurance/quality control tools for the analysis of BFRs in the fields of environmental analysis and food control, especially for compliance purposes. The sediment ERM-CC537a carries certified values for polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and hexabromocyclododecane (HBCDD) diastereoisomers in the μg/kg range (dry mass), while the fish tissue ERM-CE102 is certified for PBDEs in the ng/kg range (wet weight). ERM-CC537a is the first reference material ever available with certified values for α-, β- and γ-HBCDD. The assignment of the certified values was performed via an intercomparison of expert laboratories. The evaluation of the data confirms the improving trend, observed in recent years, regarding the comparability of PBDE measurement results. The relative standard deviation (RSD) among laboratories is slightly better for the fish material (8–11%) compared to the sediment (9–15%), despite lower mass fractions in the biota matrix. The RSD of HBCDD data (17%) reveals that they are more challenging analytes. The average measurement uncertainty declared by the participants is about 30%, but an in-depth analysis of their performance reveals that it should be feasible to reduce the uncertainty budget. Keywords Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) . Hexabromocyclododecanes (HBCDDs) . Fish . Quality assurance and control . Environmental monitoring . Food safety . Measurement uncertainty . Interlaboratory comparison

Introduction Flame retardants are chemical additives used in a large variety of inflammable commercial products (e.g. electronic equipment, construction materials, furnishings and textiles), with the purpose of preventing the start and/or slowing the spread Responsible Editor: Ester Heath Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-08950-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Marina Ricci [email protected] 1

European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Retieseweg 111, 2440 Geel, Belgium

2

Aarhus University, Department of Environmental Science, Frederiksborgvej 399, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark

of fire. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and hexabromocyclododecanes (HBCDDs) belong to the additive-type brominated flame retardants (BFRs) which, due to the absence of covalent bonds to the polymer, are more easily