Hidden toxins found in banned Caribbean pesticide formulations

<p>Chlordecone (CLD) was widely used in French West Indies (FWI) until 1993 against black banana weevil (Cosmopolites sordidus). However, this pesticide was determined to have various adverse effects such as increasing the frequency of prostate cancer and impacting infant's neurological development. It is thus a highly monitored compound in FWI environmental, food and biological matrices. CLD represents the major organic component (5 % by weight) of the commercial formulations used in the past, although some other compounds are expected to be present. This study investigates the overall organic chemical composition of six Curlone formulations and of one sample of technical Kepone to identify compounds other than CLD that can be present in these formulations and still unknown. Chemical analysis was performed using both gas chromatography and liquid chromatography hyphenated with high resolution mass spectrometry, while data processing was conducted using non-target analysis. The overall investigation lead to the detection of 52 chlorinated molecules and 16 non-chlorinated molecules ranging from 1 % to 1 part-per-million (ppm) of the CLD intensity. Tentatively identified compounds were some CLD isomers, mirex, chlordecol, monohydro-and/or dihydroCLD, chlorocyclopentadienes, chloronaphthalenes, chlorobutadienes, chloroindanes, chloroindenes and chlorocyclopentenes for chlorinated compounds, and cyclic hydrocarbons, oxygenated hydrocarbons and linear alkanes for non-chlorinated compounds. Even if some compounds were detected at low percentages, the high quantity used for these formulations in the French West Indies makes the overall quantity of these compounds non-negligible, and thus future studies could investigate these compounds in environmental, food and biological matrices.</p>