Contamination of water and organic solvents stored in plastic bottles with phthalate ester plasticizers

Migration of phthalic acid esters into water, n-hexane, and methanol kept in polyethy-lene bottles or PVC tubes was investigated by high-performance liquid chromatography with a variable wavelength u.v. detector. The content of esters in water kept in contact with PVC for one day was 0.44 ppm and the migration rate of dibutyl phthalate was 4.8 × 10^-5 mg h^-1 cm^-2 of PVC tube. n-Hexane stored in a polyethylene bottle for 7 days contained 6 ppm esters; the migration rate of dibutyl phthalate was 6.4 × 10^-5 mg h^-1 cm^-2 of polyethylene. PVC tubing connected to ion-exchange resin columns contaminates deionized water with the esters.