Simultaneous analysis of phthalates, adipate and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in edible oils using isotope dilution-gas chromatography–mass spectrometry

A method for simultaneous determination of 12 priority phthalates, adipate and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in edible oils by isotope dilution-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (ID-GC-MS) was developed for fast, accurate and trace analysis. The extraction and clean-up procedures were optimised, and using stable isotope-labelled internal standards for each analyte, relative standard deviations (RSDs) of 0.92-10.6% and spiked sample recoveries of 80.6-97.8% were obtained. Limits of detection for PAHs were in the range of 0.15-0.77 µg/kg and those for phthalates were in the range of 4.6-10.0 µg/kg. The calibration curves exhibited good linearities with regression coefficients of R(2) ≥ 0.99. Twelve edible oils were examined to evaluate the efficiency of this method. Among the 12 analytes, dibutyl phthalates (DBP), diethylhexyl phthalates (DEHP), diethylhexyl adipate (DEHA), benzo[a]anthracene (B[a]A), chrysene (Chry) and benzo[b]fluoranthene (B[b]F) were detected in the range of 1.17-806 µg/kg.