Determination of Phthalate Esters in Liquor by High Resolution Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

Phthalate esters are environmental hormones present in food due to their migration from packaging materials and other polymers. Gas chromatography and liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry are the most widely used techniques for trace phthalate ester determination. However, a major problem in the analysis is contamination during the sample pretreatment, resulting in false-positive results or over-estimated concentrations. In this study, a simple, rapid, and sensitive method for the determination of seventeen phthalate esters in liquor using high resolution mass spectrometry was developed. Samples were directly analyzed without pretreatment, which reduced contamination and improved the accuracy of the results. In addition, the total time required for the analysis of one sample was only 15 minutes. The method showed good linearity (R2 > 0.995) in the ranges of 1 to 100 µg/L and 100 to 500 µg/L. The limits of detection and quantification were between 0.1 and 1.0 µg/L and 0.4 and 2.0 µg/L, respectively. The precision was evaluated by intra-day and inter-day measurements and expressed as the relative standard deviation (RSD). The values were less than 4.32% and 7.43%, respectively. The recovery values of phthalate esters from liquor fortified at 10, 50, 100, and 200 µg/L were determined to be 88.7% to 119.2%, with relative standard deviations of 0.3% to 9.6% (n = 6). The method was suitable for the rapid screening and confirmation of phthalate esters in liquor.