Determination of N-Nitrosamine Compounds in Traditional Pickled Vegetables by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

Abstract:

An analytical method was developed to determine the contents of N-nitrosamine compounds in pickled vegetables by solid-phase extraction（SPE） combining gas chromatography-mass spectrometry（GC-MS）. In this study，different extraction methods and the ratios of the eluents in SPE were investigated. The results showed that solid phase extraction got not only the higher recoveries but also the cleaner spectrum figure peaks compared with ultrasonic extraction. Moreover，by eluting with 90% methanol，the solid phase extraction obtained the recoveries more than 90% as well as reducing the organic solvent usage，the linear correlation coefficients of two N-nitrosamine compounds were up to 0.994 and 0.999 respectively，within 0.1~10.0 mg/L. The detection limits were 0.02 mg/L and the recoveries were 90%~112%. The reproducibility was good with the relative standard deviations（RSD） less than 2.3%. This method is convenient and it is suitable for the determination of N-nitrosamine compounds in the pickled vegetables.