Abstract:

A high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometric (HPLC-MS/MS) method was developed for the determination of rhodamine B residue in Chinese preserved sausages. The whole determination procedure consisted of extraction with a mixture of ethyl acetate and cyclohexane (1:1, V/V), cleanup with an Accuprep gel filtration chromatographic system, rotary evaporation concentration, filtration through 0.22 μm membrane, HPLC-MS/MS analysis, and quantitation by external standard method. The developed method showed a good linearity over the wide range of 5－100 ng/mL. Average recoveries of rhodamine B in spiked samples at three levels varied from 79.8% to 110.3%, with relative standard deviations between 10.0% and 10.3%. The limit of detection was 5 μg/kg. Therefore, this method, thanks to its simplicity and rapidity, has a good applicability to the determination of rhodamine B residue in Chinese preserved sausages.

Key words: sausage, rhodamine B, high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS)