Overview
This three-page Dioxin 2010 symposium proceedings paper (Organohalogen Compounds) reports a GC/EI-MS + GC/ECNI-MS screening of polyurethane-foam sub-samples from 101 donated baby products (car seats, strollers, nursing pillows, changing-table pads, sleep positioners, baby carriers) for the additive flame retardants that have replaced PentaBDE in U.S. consumer foams since the 2004 voluntary PentaBDE phase-out. The authors report that more than 80% of products tested contained a positively identifiable flame retardant, with TDCPP (tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate) the most frequently detected (36 of 101 samples), the Firemaster® 550 / 600 components TPP + TBB + TBPH the second most frequent (17 samples), and TCEP (tris(2-chloroethyl) phosphate) — a California Proposition 65 carcinogen — detected in 14 samples and concentrated in nursing pillows (9 of 11 nursing-pillow sub-samples). The paper measures no heavy metals and contributes no occurrence data to the HMI lead (Pb)/total arsenic (tAs)/cadmium (Cd)/methylmercury (MeHg)/total mercury (tHg)/inorganic arsenic (iAs)/nickel (Ni)/aluminum (Al)/hexavalent chromium (Cr-VI)/tin (Sn) certification panel; it is ingested as an out-of-core-scope durable-infant-product contamination reference (per the precedent set by anderson2002-uk-us-diaper-voc-emissions-mice.md for VOC emissions and the non-metals scope discussion in kjolholt2015-car-safety-seats-childrens-textiles.md), routed to [[products/car-seats]] and [[products/strollers]] for discoverability as a baby-durable-foam flame-retardant exposure-pathway reference. The full ES&T paper that built on this proceedings abstract — Stapleton HM, Klosterhaus S, Keller A, Ferguson PL, van Bergen S, Cooper E, Webster TF, Blum A, Environ. Sci. Technol. 2011;45:5323–5331, doi 10.1021/es2007462 — is not present in the corpus as of the access date.
Key numbers
Detection frequencies are pulled verbatim from Table 1 (“Chemicals identified in polyurethane foam collected from baby products and the frequency of their detection,” p. 3) and from the narrative statements on p. 2; n = 101 sub-samples total. Detection-frequency rows in Table 1 sum to 107 against a sample base of 101, indicating that some products contained more than one identifiable flame retardant (the paper does not report per-product co-occurrence counts).
| Flame retardant (abbreviation) | Chemical name | # of detects (Table 1) | % of n=101 |
|---|---|---|---|
| PentaBDE | Pentabromodiphenyl ether commercial mixture | 4 | 4.0 % |
| TPP + TBB + TBPH (Firemaster® 550 / 600 components) | Triphenyl phosphate + 2-ethylhexyl 2,3,4,5-tetrabromobenzoate + bis(2-ethylhexyl) 2,3,4,5-tetrabromophthalate | 17 | 16.8 % |
| TDCPP | Tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate | 36 | 35.6 % |
| TCEP | Tris(2-chloroethyl) phosphate | 14 | 13.9 % |
| TCPP | Tris(2-chloro-2-propyl) phosphate (also tris(1-chloro-2-propyl) phosphate isomers) | 15 | 14.9 % |
| Nothing detected | — | 13 | 12.9 % |
| Unidentified chemicals in foam | — | 8 | 7.9 % |
Additional results-narrative figures (p. 2):
- Aggregate detection of any identifiable flame retardant: “more than 80% of the products tested contained a known and identifiable flame retardant chemical.”
- Chlorinated organophosphate flame retardants (TDCPP, TCEP, TCPP) collectively dominated brominated flame retardants in this sample set: “a majority of the flame retardants detected were chlorinated and not brominated.”
- TCEP product-type concentration (p. 2): “TCEP was detected most often in nursing pillows. Eleven foam samples collected from nursing pillows were analyzed in this study; nine of these nursing pillows contained TCEP.” The 9/11 nursing-pillow TCEP detection rate is the only per-product-type detection figure reported in the proceedings paper.
- PentaBDE legacy interpretation (p. 2): the 4 PentaBDE detections are interpreted by the authors as “likely a result of its use in foam products manufactured prior to the phase out in 2004,” not as evidence of post-2004 PentaBDE use.
- Firemaster® 550 / 600 attribution (p. 2): the TPP + TBB + TBPH co-detection pattern is attributed to Chemtura’s commercial Firemaster® 550 and Firemaster® 600 formulations. The paper does not report which (or both) of the two formulations was detected in each of the 17 positive samples.
- TCEP regulatory context as reported by the authors (p. 2): TCEP “has been phased out of use in Europe and is currently listed on California’s Proposition 65 list, which includes chemicals that are known carcinogens.”
Methods (brief)
Sample collection (p. 1): Polyurethane foam was donated by volunteers contacted via email listservs and personal contacts of the authors. Participants were asked to remove a 3–5 cm³ piece of foam from each baby product, wrap it in aluminum foil, and place it in a sealed plastic bag. Per-sample metadata captured: product type, manufacturer and model, year of purchase, presence/absence of a TB 117 label.
Sample preparation (p. 1): A 0.5 cm³ sub-sample was sliced from each donated foam piece with a pre-cleaned razor blade and transferred to a test tube. Approximately 2 mL of dichloromethane was added; the tube was sonicated for 15 min. The dichloromethane extract was filtered through a 0.45 µm PTFE syringe filter (the paper text reads “PFTE,” interpreted as a typographical inversion of PTFE) and transferred to an autosampler vial.
Instrumental analysis (p. 1): Extracts were analyzed by gas chromatography / mass spectrometry in both electron-impact (GC/EI-MS) and negative chemical-ionization (GC/ECNI-MS) modes, collecting full-scan spectra in each. GC/EI-MS spectra were first compared to the 2005 NIST mass-spectral library to generate candidate identifications. Confirmation of each candidate identification was then performed by comparison to authentic analytical standards purchased from Supelco (Bellefonte, PA), Chemservice (West Chester, PA), Sigma-Aldrich (St. Louis, MO), and Wellington Laboratories (Guelph, Ontario).
Quantitation note: This proceedings paper reports detection frequencies only. It does not report concentration values, detection limits, recoveries, blanks, or surrogate-standard performance. The fuller method and quantitative concentration data later appeared in Stapleton et al. 2011 (Environ. Sci. Technol. 45:5323–5331), which is outside the scope of this proceedings entry.
Statistical reporting (p. 2): The authors explicitly note that the sampling design was non-random (“this study did not include random sampling”) and frame the detection frequencies as descriptive screening data, not as representative U.S.-market prevalence estimates.
Limitations explicitly acknowledged by the authors:
- Convenience sampling via volunteer donation; no claim to U.S.-market representativeness (p. 2).
- 8 of 101 samples contained “unidentified chemicals” — i.e., GC/MS peaks not matched to the 2005 NIST library or to the authentic-standard panel; the chemical identities of those 8 samples’ additives are not reported.
- 13 of 101 samples (“nothing detected”) may either reflect genuinely flame-retardant-free foam or sub-detection-limit additive content; the proceedings paper does not report a detection limit, so the two interpretations cannot be discriminated.
Implications
- Certification (HMTc): No direct relevance. The paper measures only chlorinated and brominated organic flame retardants (TDCPP, TCEP, TCPP, TPP, TBB, TBPH, PentaBDE) and contributes no data to the HMTc 10-analyte panel (Pb, tAs, Cd, MeHg, tHg, iAs, Ni, Al, Cr-VI, Sn) for the HMTc rows that would cover the studied product categories (car seats, strollers, and — pending Step 0 Lock — nursing pillows, changing-table pads, sleep positioners, and baby carriers). The exposure pathway documented (additive flame retardant leaching out of polyurethane foam into indoor dust and onto product surfaces) is also out of scope for the HMTc heavy-metals certification model, which measures total-metal content in finished durable-infant-product matrices. The paper is preserved as a methodology and exposure-pathway reference; the comparable HMI-scope question on the same product categories (additive-metal content of polyurethane foam by acid digestion + ICP-MS rather than dichloromethane-soluble organic additives by GC/MS) is not addressed in the current corpus and is flagged here as an evidence-base gap for the relevant product-category pages.
- Courses: Useful as a methodology reference for GC/EI-MS + GC/ECNI-MS screening of additive contaminants in polyurethane foam, and as an early-2010s landmark documenting the post-PentaBDE chemical-substitution pattern in U.S. baby-product foams (chlorinated organophosphates supplanting brominated diphenyl ethers in response to the 2004 voluntary PentaBDE phase-out). Also useful for illustrating the convenience-sampling caveat that recurs in volunteer-donation consumer-product chemistry studies.
- App: Not applicable to the heavy-metals consumer app.
Update history
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