Abstract: Dimethyl fumarate is widely used in the food industry as an antifungal agent. Because of the high content of oil and spice in pastry and spicy snacks, extraction and determination of dimethyl fumarate from these matrices is challenging. In this study, a GPC-GC/MS method to determine dimethyl fumarate residues in pastry and spicy snacks was established. Samples were extracted with a mixture of cyclohexane and ethyl acetate (1:1, V/V) and the extract was cleaned up and concentrated in an automated GPC system. Dimethyl fumarate was analyzed by GC-MS in the selective ion monitoring mode using m/z 113, 85, and 59 as qualitative ions. A regression equation was built for the method as follows: Y = 4018974X － 56743, with a linear range of 0.02－20.0 mg/L and a correlation coefficient of 0.9991. The detection limitation of the method was 0.02 mg/kg. The average recoveries across the spike levels of 0.05, 0.5 mg/kg and 1.5 mg/kg were between 89.5% and 94.0% with a relative standard derivation ranging from 4.0% to 5.7% (n = 6). The method was of high recovery, low detection limit and high automation.

Key words: dimethyl fumarate, gel permeation chromatography(GPC), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry(GC-MS), pastry and spicy snacks