Qualitative identification of impurities and principal component quantitative analysis of zearalanone on purity certified reference material

Abstract

A liquid chromatography method was established for the determination of zearalanone (ZAN) raw material. The qualitative analysis of ZAN and its trace impurities was performed by ultra performance liquid chromatography-diode array detector (UPLC-DAD) and ultra performance liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry (UPLC-HRMS), and the response factors of each impurity were calculated. The three main organic impurities in the ZAN raw material were identified as β -zearalanol, α -zearalanol and a dehydration product of zearalanol with relative response factors of 0.5352, 0.8594 and 0.6973, respectively. The main component of the ZAN raw material was determined by the calibration factor normalization method. The purity of zearalanone was determined to be 99.6% with a standard deviation of 0.01%. This method can provide a technical support for the development of ZAN standard materials.