Combining bar adsorptive microextraction with capillary electrophoresis—Application for the determination of phenolic acids in food matrices

In this contribution, bar adsorptive microextraction coated with a mixed‐mode anion exchange/RP followed by liquid desorption was combined for the first time with a capillary electrophoresis‐diode array detection system (BAμE(MAX)‐LD/CE‐DAD), for the determination of phenolic acids in food matrices, using chlorogenic, ferulic, cumaric, and caffeic acids as model compounds. Assays performed in aqueous media spiked at the 0.8 mg/L level yielded average recoveries up to 40% for all four phenolic acids, under optimized experimental conditions. The analytical performance showed also good precision (RSD < 15%), convenient LODs (18.0–85.0 μg/L) and linear dynamic ranges (0.8–8.0 mg/L) with convenient determination coefficients (r² > 0.9900). By using the standard addition method, the application to food matrices such as green tea, red fruit juice, and honey allowed very good performances for the determination of minor amounts of phenolic acids. The proposed methodology proved to be a suitable alternative for the analysis of polar to ionic compounds, showing to be easy to implement, reliable, sensitive, and requiring a low sample volume to determine phenolic acids in food samples.