Sergio Passarellaa, Simone Morettib, Carolina Barolab, Roberta Galarinib, Pasquale Avinoa,c

aDipartimento di Agricoltura, Ambiente e Alimenti, Università degli Studi del Molise, IT 86100 Campobasso, Italy;
bIstituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell'Umbria e delle Marche "Togo Rosati", IT-06126 Perugia, Italy;
cIIA, Division of Rome, c/o MATTM, IT-00147 Rome, Italy.

Bees, as low-cost tools, are increasingly used for environmental biomonitoring due to their ability to absorb compounds from nectar and pollen, as well as the potential for adsorption of pollutants and other environmental contaminants during flight. This allows bees and bee products such as honey to detect contaminants in a relatively wide radius around the hive [1]. Among the POPs, PFAS represent a category of emerging pollutants that give rise to significant concern with regard to both human health and the environment. These substances exhibit exceptional chemical stability due to their strong carbon-fluorine bonding [2]. This study aims to investigate these pollutants' occurrence in honey. 

The study area encompassed a number of sites distributed across the Molise region in Italy. Strata X-AW SPE cartridges and d-SPE Envicarb were used for preconcentration and clean-up. Chromatography was performed using a Thermo Ultimate 3000 system with a Kinetex XB C18 column, coupled with a mass analyser Q-Orbitrap equipped with a HESI source [3]. A near-absence of 39 PFAS was identified in the samples; only three samples had PFAS. The compounds were 6:2FTS, Bistriflimide, and L-PFOS. In conclusion, an estimation of the sources of PFAS contamination of the samples was conducted on the basis of a review of the scientific literature.

Keywords: biomonitoring, honey, PFAS, pollution.

References

1. Di Fiore C, De Cristofaro A, et al., Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res., 30 (2023), 44234–4250 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-023-25339-4. 

2. Podder A, Sadmani A.H.M.A., et al., J. Hazard. Mater., 419 (2021), 126361 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.126361.

3. Barola C, Moretti S et al., J. Chromatogr. A, 1628 (2020), 461442 DOI: 10.1016/j.chroma.2020.461442.