Determination of Nitrite and Nitrate in Vegetable by HPLC

A new high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method was established to determine the contents of nitrite and nitrate in vegetable. The results showed that the determination linear ranges of both nitrate and nitrite in vegetable are 0～80 mg/kg (by calculating the mass of nitrogen),and the coefficients between concentrations and peak areas for nitrate and nitrite are 0.9999. The detection limits of nitrite and nitrate are 0.04 mg/kg and 0.01 mg/kg, respectively. The recovery rate of nitrite is 99.2%～102.4% and that of nitrate 98.7%～99.3%, and the RSD of nitrite and nitrate are 0.79% and 0.25 %, respectively. In comparison with China GB-method,the present method is simple in operation, more sensitive, and rapid, and can therefore be used widely.