Abstract: A liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) method was developed for determining sodium cyclamate in pickles. Pickle samples were extracted directly by water and the separation was performed on a ZORBAX SB-C18 column (4.6 mm × 250 mm, 5 μm) in an isocratic elution mode using a mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile and 0.1% formic acid (25:75, V/V) at a flow rate of 0.6 mL/min. Sodium cyclamate was monitored by ESI MS in the SIM negative ion mode on the basis of [M-Na]－  ion m/z 178.1 and quantified using the external standard method. Key experimental conditions were optimized. The calibration curve of the method revealed an excellent linear relationship in the concentration range of 0.1－5.0 mg/kg (R2 ＝0.99987), and the limit of quantification (LOQ) was 0.1 mg/kg. The recovery rates across three spike levels were higher than 82.0% with RSD of 2.59%－4.82% (n ＝ 6). The method was simple, accurate and suitable for the determination of sodium cyclamate in pickles.

Key words: pickles, sodium cyclamate, liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, determination