Signal processing to evaluate parameters affecting SPE for multi‐residue analysis of personal care products

This paper discusses the development of a comprehensive method for the simultaneous analysis of personal care products (PCPs) based on SPE and GC‐MS. The method was developed on 29 target compounds to represent PCPs belonging to different chemical classes: surfactants in detergents (alkyl benzenes), fragrances in cosmetics (nitro and polycyclic musks), antioxidants and preservatives (phenols), plasticizers (phthalates) displaying a wide range of volatility, polarity, water solubility. In addition to the conventional C₁₈ stationary phase, a surface modified styrene divinylbenzene polymeric phase (Strata^TM X SPE cartridge) has been investigated as suitable for the simultaneous extraction of several PCPs with polar and non‐polar characteristics. For both sorbents different solvent compositions and eluting conditions were tested and compared in order to achieve high extraction efficiency for as many sample components as possible. Comparison of the behavior of the two cartridges reveals that, overall, Strata‐X provides better efficiency with extraction recovery higher than 70% for most of the PCPs investigated. The best results were obtained under the following operative conditions: an evaporation temperature of 40°C, elution on Strata‐X cartridge using a volume of 15 mL of ethyl acetate (EA) as solvent and operating with slow flow rate (–10 KPa). In addition to the conventional method based on peak integration, a chemometric approach based on the computation of the experimental autocovariance function (EACVF_tot) was applied to the complex GC‐MS signal: the percentage recovery and information on peak abundance distribution can be evaluated for each procedure step. The PC‐based signal processing proved very helpful in assisting the development of the analytical procedure, since it saves labor and time and increases result reliability in handling GC complex signals.