Rapid Identification and Determination of N-Nitrosamines in Food Products by Ultra-High-Performance Liquid Chromatography–High Resolution Quadrupole-Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry by Exact Masses of Protonated Molecules

Abstract

A method is proposed for the rapid identification and determination of seven N-nitrosamines in food products by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography in combination with high-resolution quadrupole-time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The ranges of detectable concentrations of N-nitrosamines are from 0.001–5 to 2–100 ng/mL for liquid (water, beer) and from 2–50 to 4–100 ng/g for solid (meat, fish, mussels, malt, grain, sausage, wieners, and bockwursts) products. The limits of detection are 0.0005–2 ng/mL, 2–5 ng/g for liquid and solid products, respectively. The recovery of analytes is from 62 to 105%. The matrix effect was estimated in determining N-nitrosamines in samples of different nature. The matrix effect is negligible (≤20%) in the determination of N-nitrosamines in water and is significant for beer, meat products, grain, malt, and fish (>20%). A procedure is proposed for the rapid identification and determination of N-nitrosamines by the standard addition method and using matrix calibration. The relative standard deviation of the results of analysis does not exceed 17%. The duration of sample identification is 40 min; the determination of the detected analytes takes 1–1.5 h.