Abstract:  Ethephon was applied widely to accelerate the ripening of fruit and vegetable as a plant-growth regulator. But at thesame time, it easily became the residue contamination in food. A simple and fast determination method of ethephon residue in foodwas therefore developed by means of the headspace gas chromatography. The sample and lye were first loaded in headspace bottle,then the headspace bottle was airproofed and heated up. The headspace gas of the sample was extracted and detected by GC withFID, and the quantitation was made by standard curve. The minimum detection limit was 0.01mg/kg, the average recovery 99.1%～105.0%, the relative standard deviation 8.64%～10.10%, and the linear range of method 0.01～100mg/kg. This determinationmethod is feasible to test the ethephon residue in fruits and vegetables.

Key words: ethephon, headspace gas chromatography, residue