Abstract:

An analytical method was developed for the determination of 9 residual solvents in food additives by static
headspace gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-GC-MS). The optimal chromatographic conditions were as follows:
an HP-5MS capillary column (30 m × 0.25 mm, 0.25 μm), and equilibration of the sample in the headspace vessel at
80 ℃ in 5 min. The results showed that all 9 organic residues were separated well within 10 min, and the standard curves
were linear in the range of 0.1–10 mg/L for alkanes and aromatic hydrocarbons, 1–100 mg/L for esters and ketones, and
4.0–400 mg/L for alcohols. The correlation coefficients were more than 0.997 1 for 9 residual organic solvents. The
recoveries for spiked samples were 87.54%–106.50% with RSD (n = 5) in the range of 1.43%–6.17%, and the limits of
detection were 0.000 4–0.005 2 mg/L for alkanes and aromatic hydrocarbons, 0.016 0–0.024 0 mg/L for esters and ketones,
and 0.550 0–0.596 0 mg/L for alcohols. The proposed method is simple, rapid, sensitive and accurate, and can be used for
the simultaneous determination of residual solvents in food additives.

Key words: headspace, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, organic solvents, residual, food additive