Application of HRMS for the Identification of PFAS in Food Contact Materials and PMOCs in Antarctic Media

This research is associated with the project “Uncovering Antarctica’s Secret Chemical Voyagers for Expedited Regulations”. The project is part of an international collaboration between Griffith University, the University of Queensland (more precisely QAEHS), the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU), and Environment Canada. During her PhD in analytical chemistry focused on food analysis, Dr Lerch contributed to improving consumer safety by the characterization of per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) in food contact materials, real food, and food simulants. The project incorporated the identification of PFAS in paper food contact materials by suspect screening via LC-HRMS (LC-Orbitrap and LC-Q-ToF) and the quantitation of targeted PFAS in real food samples after migration tests by LC-MS/MS (LC-QqQ). During the seminar presentation, Michaela will provide insights into her PhD project with the title “PFAS in Paper Based Food Contact Materials – Mass Spectrometric Identification and Migration Tests in Food Simulants and Real Food” and plans for her current project.

Dr. Michaela Lerch is a Post-Doc within the Centre of Planetary Health and Food Safety at Griffith University. Her primary responsibility is developing and optimizing non-targeted and suspect screening methodologies for detecting persistent and mobile organic compounds (PMOCs) in Antarctic media (air and seawater) using both GC and LC-HRMS instrumentation.