DETERMINATION OF PHTHALIC ACID ESTERS IN FOOD BY HIGH PERFORMANCE LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY-TANDEM MASS SPECTROMETRY

[Objective]To establish a method that determinate 5 phthalic acid esters(PAEs)simultaneously,and to study the phthalate pollution in foods.[Methods]256 foods from various super-markets and stores in Shenzhen were analyzed.Food samples were soaked in hexane and placed in a super-sonic instrument for one hour to extract the phthalates.High performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometric method was used to determinate the esters after proper preparation of the samples.[Results]The correlation coefficients were above 0.997,the range of relative standard deviation(RSD)was from 1.2% to 9.3% and the recoveries were 80.9%-119.8%.32.6% of the samples were proved to contain the esters.[Conclusion]The method is simple,effective and accurate.It can be applied to determinate 5 PAEs in foods simultaneously.The phthalate pollution in food is serious.Relative departments should pay more attention to this situation.