Rapid and simultaneous extraction of phthalates, polychlorinated biphenyls and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from edible oil for GC–MS determination

A QuEChERS (Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged, Safe) method, for reliable semi-quantitative screening of 27 organic contaminants including phthalates (PAEs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) in edible oil, was developed. N-hexane saturated with acetonitrile and C18-Z-Sep+ was used for extraction and cleanup in liquid liquid extraction-dispersive solid phase extraction (LLE-dSPE) combined with freezing-lipid precipitation. Subsequently, NAGINATA2.0 software with a constructed calibration-locking database was used to detect the organic contaminants and validate the method. The calibration curves were observed to be linear in the range of 0.01–0.5 µg/mL for PAEs and PAHs, and 0.02–1 µg/mL for PCBs. The recoveries for most of the organic contaminants were in range of 70.9–110% with relative standard deviation less than 20%. The proposed method should provide an efficient tool for semi-quantitative screening of numerous organic contaminants in edible oil samples simultaneously.