Abstract:
A method was developed for the simultaneous determination of ten benzotriazole ultraviolet stabilizers in plastic bottled fruit juices beverages by ultra performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS). The separation was performed by using water containing 0.1% formic acid and methanol as the mobile phases with gradient elution at a flow rate of 0.3 mL/min. Qualitative and quantitative analysis were achieved after the chromatographic separation on a Waters Acquity UPLC BEH C18 column (100 mm×2.1 mm×1.7 μm). The electrospray ionization (ESI) source in positive ion mode was used of the analysis of the ten benzotriazole ultraviolet stabilizers in the multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. The parameters were optimized, like as the effect of different solid-phase extraction (SPE) columns, elution solvents and elution volume. The condition of the final choice was that the sample was purified by C18 SPE column with 4 mL methanol-dichloromethane (1∶1,
V/V). The standard curves are obtained with good correlation coefficients (
R2>0.996) in their concentration range. The limit of quantification (LOQ, S/N=10) for the ten benzotriazole ultraviolet stabilizers is 0.1 μg/kg. The mean recoveries for the ten benzotriazole ultraviolet stabilizers at three spiked levels of 2.5, 5.0 and 25.0 μg/kg are 79.8%-101.5% with the relative standard deviations of 1.0%-5.5% (
n=6). Ten kinds of food contacting materials were tested, benzotriazole ultraviolet stabilizer was not found in the sample. The method is accurate, simple and feasible for the simultaneous determination of benzotriazole ultraviolet stabilizers in plastic bottled fruit juices beverages.