Abstract:

An ultra performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-ESIMS-
MS) method was developed for the simultaneous determination of seven synthetic sweeteners, acesulfame-K, sodium
saccharin, sodium cyclamate, sucralose, aspartame, alitame and neotame, in liquor products. ZORBAX Eclipse XDB-C18
column (100 mm × 4.6 mm, 1.8 μm) chromatographic column was used, and the solvent system was composed of mobile
phase A (methanol), and mobile phase B (0.1% formic acid and 20 mmol/L ammonium formate in water, pH 4.0). The flow
rate was 0.5 mL/min for gradient elution, and the column temperature was held at 50 ℃. In the ESI negative ion mode,
multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) was used for quantitation. The 7 kinds of artificial sweeteners were successfully
detected within 12.5 min. These sweeteners showed good linear relationships in the range of 10–5 000 μg/L with correlation
coefficients larger than 0.999. The limits of detection (LODs) for acesulfame-K, saccharin sodium, sodium cyclamate,
sucralose, aspartame, alitame and neotame were 4, 6, 4, 8, 4, 4 and 2 μg/L, respectively, and recovery rates for spiked
samples ranged from 88.3% to 98.3%, with relative standard deviations between 2.1% and 6.7%. A rapid, accurate and
sensitivity method has been developed in this study and this method has been successfully applied to the determination of
synthetic sweeteners at low levels in liquor products.

Key words: ultra performance liquid chromatography-electro spray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS-MS), mass spectrometry, liquor products, synthetic sweeteners