Determination of 17 Kinds of Synthetic Colorants in Meat Products by UPLC-MS/MS

To establish a method for the rapid detection of 17 colorants in meat products by ultra performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS), samples were homogeneously extracted with water, degreased with n-hexane, enriched and purified with weak anion solid phase extraction (WAX) column. The seventeen compounds were separated on ACQUITY UPLC HSS T3 column by the gradient elution using acetonitrile-5 mmol/L ammonium acetate solution as mobile phase, detected by MS/MS with negative mode in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode, and finally quantified by external standard method. The correlation coeffcients (r) of the seventeen compounds were above 0.99 in the mass concentration ranging from 20~1200 μg/L. The limits of detection and the limits of quantification of the method were 0.01~0.05 mg/kg and 0.03~0.15 mg/kg, respectively. The recoveries of seventeen analyses spiked at three levels (0.15, 0.30 and 1.0 mg/kg) in meat products ranged from 71.2% to 103.5% with the relative standard deviations (RSDs, n=6) ranged from 1.3%~4.9%. The method was easy to operate and with good purification effect. It could be applied to the rapid determination of the synthetic colorants in meat products .