Determination of Folic Acid in Food by UPLC-MS/MS

A method for the determination of folic acid in food by ultra performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry(UPLC-MS/MS) has been established.Sample extract was separated on Acquity UPLC BEH C18 column(2.1 mm × 50 mm,1.7 μm) using a mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile and 0.1% formic acid(5:95,V/V) at a flow rate of 0.25 mL/min,and analyzed by electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry(ESI-MS/MS) in a positive-ion selective reaction monitoring(SRM) mode at a collision energy of 14 eV using m/z 442.3,m/z 295.1 and m/z 176.0 as the parent,quantitative and qualitative ions,respectively.The column temperature and the injection volume were set as 40 ℃ and 2 μL,respectively.The average blank spike recoveries for 4 replicate determinations across three spike levels were in the range of 80.7%-89.7% with RSD of 2.90%-3.85%.The limit of detection was 1 ng/mL.An excellent linear relationship was achieved in the range of 0.001-1.000 μg/mL.The method was characterized by simple operation,time saving and high sensitivity.