Professor University of Hohenheim Stuttgart, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany
Abstract: Chlorinated paraffins (CPs) are industrial chemicals currently produced at a higher tonnage per year than PCBs during their accumulated lifelong application from 1929 on. Among other industrial areas, CPs are widely applied as lubricants, plasticizers, softeners, and flame retardants. CPs are obtained by the chlorination of different alkane feedstocks to different weight-% chlorine. The resulting technical CP mixtures are extremely complex and impossible to be resolved by chromatographic method. Also, no general instrumental consensus method could be established so far. Still, the partial ban of CPs as “Stockholm POPs” requires their monitoring on various products.
Methods: We synthesized reference standards and developed methods for the determination of CPs in food and environmental samples. Also, theoretical considerations on the complexity of CPs were carried out and a historical investigation will be shown in order to demonstrate their relevance.
Results: After a brief historic introduction, analytical problems will be discussed and data will be presented on CP levels in dietary supplements, oily and fatty matrices, and their presence in indoor equipment and samples. Emphasis will be put on explaining the high CP concentrations recently determined in representative human milk samples world-wide.
Conclusion: CPs are currently produced in very high quantities and levels in processed food, environmental samples and human milk will likely rise during the next years and decades. A more thorough control of processed food on CPs is recommended.
