A salting out-acetonitrile homogeneous extraction coupled with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry method for the simultaneous determination of thirteen N-nitrosamines in skin care cosmetics

Abstract

A sensitive gas chromatography–mass spectrometry method was established for the simultaneous determination of thirteen N-nitrosamines (NAs) in skin care cosmetics. The cosmetics samples were firstly dispersed by water and subsequently extracted and purified using salting out-acetonitrile homogeneous extraction method. Finally, the extracting solution was concentrated by slow nitrogen gas blowing. All of the samples were separated by INNOWAX capillary chromatographic column, and detected by selected ion monitoring (SIM) mode of gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) and quantified by isotope internal standard method. The method was validated for linearity and range, accuracy, precision and sensitivity. Under the optimized condition, the calibration curves were linear over the selected concentration ranges of 2–500μg/L for all the thirteen analytes, with calculated coefficients of determination (R2) of greater than 0.996. The limits of detection (LODs) and the limits of quantitation (LOQs) of the method were 3–15μg/kg and 10–50μg/kg, respectively. Recoveries were calculated at three levels of concentration spiked in two kinds of cosmetics (skin care cream and water). The values were found between 93.8% and 121.0% with relative standard deviation (RSD) values of 2.5–7.2% for intra-day precision (n=6) and 3.3–6.7% for inter-day precision (n=5). The method was successfully applied to analyze twenty-two cosmetics samples and N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) was detected in one sample with the concentration of 207μg/kg.