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Non-targeted screening and chemical fingerprint analysis of anthropogenic contaminants in duck Farm Agro-Ecosystems

Cogent Food & Agriculture 2026
sheng song, Li Yan

Summary

Scientists tested water, soil, and other samples from two duck farms in China and found over 200 man-made chemicals, including plastic additives, drug residues, dyes, and industrial soaps, contaminating these food-producing environments. The two farms had noticeably different chemical fingerprints, showing that pollution sources can vary a lot even between similar operations, which matters because these contaminants could potentially work their way into the ducks (and eventually the food supply) that people eat.

A non-targeted UHPLC-Q-Orbitrap-HRMS workflow was applied to six matrices from two duck farms in Hunan, China. A total of 3,352 chemical features were obtained, and 209 anthropogenic contaminants were annotated (60 at Schymanski Level 2 and 149 at Level 3). Chemical and industrial compounds accounted for 77.5% of the annotated contaminants. PCA separated the six matrices; after matrix-effect removal, the two farms were significantly discriminated (p = 0.0015). Farm 1 was characterized by plasticizer- and pharmaceutical-related compounds, whereas Farm 2 showed higher responses of dye-intermediate- and surfactant-related compounds. This workflow provides technical support for composite pollution investigation and risk screening in duck farms.

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