A novel salting-out extraction system for determination of ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol in liquid samples followed by GC-FID

Abstract

In this work, a new high-efficient salting-out agent, potassium tripolyphosphate, assisted liquid–liquid extraction (SALLE) sample preparation method for the determination of the polar ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol in liquid samples (food stimulants and liquid foods) were developed. To obtain satisfactory extraction efficiencies for the studied analytes, several parameters affecting the SALLE procedure were optimized. The effects of type of salting-out reagent, type of extraction solvent, volumes of ethanol, amount of potassium triphosphate, vortexing and standing times on the extraction efficiency were investigated. Analytical performances of the method were satisfactory, showed good linearity in the selected range (R2＞0.9998), limits of detection (LOD) were 0.2 mg·L−1 in all cases. Average recoveries in the ranges of 81.2–109.3% (RSD, 0.03–7.0%) for EG, 88.1 ∼ 109.1% (RSD, 0.1–8.6%) for DEG were obtained. In relation to the green and low solvent consumption, the proposed methodology could be considered rapid and environment friendly. The developed method can be used not only for the determination of ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol in food simulation solution, but also for liquid foods with obtaining acceptable results.