This particular article seems to be referring to brominated flame retardants (BFRs) -- there's a single reference to "PBDEs" in the text, and the original cited research paper [0] talks about various BFRs. The purported issue is with plastics recycling, where both new and old products may contain previously banned compounds.
For what it's worth, the simulated cooking experiments involved cutting up the utensils into small pieces, grinding those into a powder, then vigorously combined with hexane (the terms "vortexing" and "ultrasonication" are used), then subsequently combined with sulfuric acid, and dried. Small samples were then immersed in olive oil maintained at 160 Celsius for 15 minutes. (I may have misinterpreted this section, but it described the first step as "pre-treatment of samples")
It's perhaps interesting to note that the only sample listed as "new" in Table 1 with substantial levels of bromine was a thermos cup lid (180 μg/g), and only a small number of other items had detectable levels in the 3-10 μg/g range. Meanwhile, many samples purchased to 2011 had levels well over 100μg/g. That said, I also don't know how representative this study is in the context of, say, a thermos lid if you're not storing any liquids substantially above 100 C.
For what it's worth, the simulated cooking experiments involved cutting up the utensils into small pieces, grinding those into a powder, then vigorously combined with hexane (the terms "vortexing" and "ultrasonication" are used), then subsequently combined with sulfuric acid, and dried. Small samples were then immersed in olive oil maintained at 160 Celsius for 15 minutes. (I may have misinterpreted this section, but it described the first step as "pre-treatment of samples")
It's perhaps interesting to note that the only sample listed as "new" in Table 1 with substantial levels of bromine was a thermos cup lid (180 μg/g), and only a small number of other items had detectable levels in the 3-10 μg/g range. Meanwhile, many samples purchased to 2011 had levels well over 100μg/g. That said, I also don't know how representative this study is in the context of, say, a thermos lid if you're not storing any liquids substantially above 100 C.
[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00489...