Proceeding of Veterinary and Animal Science Days 2017, 6th- 8th June, Milan, Italy 
 

HAF © 2013 

Vol. IV, No. 1s   ISSN: 2283-3927 

   

 

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Keywords 

Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), 

Residue, Liquid chromatography 

tandem mass spectrometry, Pork, 

WAX cartridge 

 

CORRESPONDING AUTHOR 

Shihkuo Lin 

shihkuo.lin@unimi.it 

 

JOURNAL HOME PAGE 

riviste.unimi.it/index.php/haf 

Abstract 

The perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) residues, which come from environmental pollution, tend to 

accumulate in the food chain (EFSA, 2008; Guerranti et al., 2013). 17 chemicals of PFASs family were 

selected for this study; only perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) are 

the most known compounds based on the literature works and European legislations. Twenty frozen 

pork samples were collected from 7 European countries (Austria, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Italy, 

Poland and Spain). One gram of pork sample was deproteined with acetonitrile, then extracted by 

Waters® WAX SPE (solid phase extraction) cartridges. The WAX SPE cartridge was used because in 

the literature there are the best results for these analytes (Taniyasu et at., 2005), but regards to pork 

meat there is a lack of information. This method was developed and optimized in the clean-up step 

for validation, according to Commission Decision 2002/657/EC (European Community, 2002). All 

extracted samples were analyzed by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), 

using methanol and 20 mM Ammonium formate as mobile phases. For validation, we use 20 blank 

pork samples. The results of calibration curve of each PFAS have high R2 values ranging from 0.9901 

to 0.9993. The Recoveries were in the range 80%-119%. The protocol of extraction was applied to the 

20 European samples mentioned above and the average concentrations were from traces to 12.87 

ng/g.  These preliminary data don’t represent a risk or an indication of high pollution but we need 

more analyses to define a reliable risk assessment. 

 

References 

EFSA, 2008. Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and their salts scientific opinion of the panel on contaminants in 
the food chain. EFSA Journal. 653, 1-13. 

European Community, 2002. Commission Decision 2002/657/EC Commission decision concerning the performance of analytical methods and the 
interpretation of results. Official Journal of the European Union. 221 , 8-36. 

Guerranti, C., Perra, G., Corsolini, S., Focardi, S. E., 2013. Pilot study on levels of perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid 
(PFOA) in selected foodstuffs and human milk from Italy. Food Chemistry. 140, 197-203. 

Taniyasu S., Kannan K., So M. K., Gulkowska A., Sinclair E., Okazawa T., Yamashita N., 2005. Analysis of fluorotelomer alcohols, fluorotelomer 
acids, and short- and long-chain perfluorinated acids in water and biota. Journal of Chromatography A. 1093, 89-97. 

Preliminary results for the detection  

method of perfluoroalkyl substances  

(PFASs) residues in pork 

Shihkuo Lin1*, Maria Nobile1, Luca M. Chiesa1 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 University of Milan, Department of Health, Animal Science and Food Safety, Italy.  

 

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