Simultaneous determination of preservatives,sweeteners and antioxidants in foods by paired-ion liquid chromatography

Summary A paired-ion, reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic method was developed for the simultaneous determination of sweeteners (dulcin, saccharin-Na and acesulfame-K), preservatives (sodium dehydroacetate, sorbic acid, salicyclic acid, benzoic acid, succinic acid, methyl-para-hydroxybenzoic acid, ethylpara-hydroxybenzoic acid, n-propyl-para-hydroxybenzoic acid, isopropyl-para-hydroxybenzoic acid, n-butyl-para-hydroxybenzoic acid, and isobutyl-para-hydroxybenzoic acid), and antioxidants (3-tertiary-butyl-4-hydroxyanisole and tertiary-butyl-hydroquinone). A mobile phase of acetonitrile-50 mM aqueous -hydroxy-isobutyric acid solution (pH 4.5) (2.2 3.4 or 2.4 3.6, v/v) containing 2.5 mM hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide and a C₁₈ column with a flow rate at 1.0 mL/min and detection at 233 nm were used. This method was found to be very reproducible with detection limits ranged from 0.15 to 3.00 g. The retention factor (k) of each additive could be affected by concentrations of hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide and -hydroxyisobutyric acid, and pH and ratio of mobile phase. The presence of additives in some food samples was determined.