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Quantification of titanium dioxide nanoparticles in human urine by single-particle ICP-MS

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Abstract

The increasing use of titanium dioxide nanoparticles in daily use consumer products such as cosmetics, personal care products, food additives, and even medicine has led to growing concerns regarding human safety. It would be ideal to track exposure to this emerging nanopollutant, for example through bioassays, however, so far nanoparticle assessment in biological matrices such as urine remains challenging. The lack of data is mainly due to the limitations of the current metrology, but also to the low expected concentration in human samples. In this study, a quantification method for titanium dioxide nanoparticles in urine has been developed and validated following the ISO/CEI 17025:2017 guidelines. The detection limit for titanium dioxide nanoparticle mass concentration by single-particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (SP-ICP-MS) was 0.05 ng mL−1. The particle size limit was determined using three different approaches, with the highest calculated limit value approaching 50 nm. Repeatability and reproducibility of 14% and 18% respectively were achieved for particle mass concentration, and 6% for both parameters for particle size determination. Method trueness and recovery were 98% and 84%, respectively.

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Acknowledgements

Author S. Salou wishes to thank Prof. Kevin Wilkinson for providing the SRM 1898 standard, Prof. Anna Ritcey for the calculation advice and tutelage regarding the mass concentration, Dr. Madjid Hadioui from McGill University for the fruitful discussion during ICASS 2019, and Dr. Chady Stephan from PerkinElmer for the discussion regarding this study. We also thank C. Bedwin for her editorial comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chemistry Department, Université Laval, 1045 Ave de la Médecine, Quebec, QC, G1V 0A6, Canada

    Samantha Salou & Dominic Larivière

  2. Institut National de Santé Publique du Québec, Centre de Toxicologie du Québec, 945 Avenue Wolfe, Québec, QC, G1V 5B3, Canada

    Samantha Salou, Ciprian-Mihai Cirtiu & Normand Fleury

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  1. Samantha Salou
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Correspondence to Dominic Larivière or Ciprian-Mihai Cirtiu.

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The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content of this paper. The urine samples were provided as a reference matrix, for analytical purposes only, by another division of the Centre de Toxicologie du Québec responsible for interlaboratory comparison exercises in biological samples. All volunteers provided written informed consent to the Centre de Toxicologie du Québec before any study-specific procedures or assessments were performed.

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Salou, S., Larivière, D., Cirtiu, CM. et al. Quantification of titanium dioxide nanoparticles in human urine by single-particle ICP-MS. Anal Bioanal Chem 413, 171–181 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-020-02989-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-020-02989-8

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