Determination of 55 Persistent Organic Pollutants in Camellia Fruits by Adsorbents Targeted Purification and Gas Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry

A method based on adsorbents targeted purification and gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry was developed for the determination of 55 kinds of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) including 16 kinds of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, 18 kinds of polychlorinated biphenyls and 21 kinds of organic chlorines in different parts of camellia fruits. The camellia seed kernel, episperm and shell were extracted with acetonitrile, salted out with sodium chloride, then cleaned-up by QuEChERS with PSA, C18, Florisil, Si, SCX, NANO Carb and Pesticarb using multiple vortex after centrifugal separation, and finally analyzed at multiple reaction monitoring mode via positive electrospray ionization. All the 55 POPs could be completely separated with an excellent linear relationship in the concentration range of 20-1 000 μg/L. The determination limits and quantification limits of the 55 POPs were 0.25-65.50 μg/kg and 0.84-218.34 μg/kg, respectively. For all the samples, the mean spiked recoveries were 69.06%-138.15%. The extraction, purification and analysis methods were developed and assessed. The method was successfully applied to the 54 camellia fruit samples from Hunan, Jiangxi and Zhejiang provinces. Nap, dieldrin, FL, toxaphene, Phe, α-BHC and ACE were detected from 4.36 μg/kg to 566.26 μg/kg in kernels. Nap, FL, Phe, toxaphene, α-BHC and ACE were detected from 3.62 μg/kg to 1 109.43 μg/kg in episperm. Nap, toxaphene, FL and Phe were detected from 5.13 μg/kg to 703.57 μg/kg in shell. The method is not only suitable for the detection of POPs in different parts of camellia fruit, but also has certain reference value for the analysis of POPs in other oil crops.