Determination of Four Furans in Infant Supplementary Foods by Isotope Dilution-Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry

Objective: A method for the determination of four furan compounds in infant supplementary foods was developed using headspace gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS/GC-MS) with the deuterated internal standards. Method: The deuterated internal standards solution was added into the samples, and the headspace was held at 60 ℃ for 30 min. The separation was performed by HP-PLOTQ capillary column gas chromatography, and the internal standard method with selected ion monitoring (SIM) was used for quantitative analysis. Result: When the sample weight was 1 g, the four furans showed good linear relationships within the range of 1~200 μg/kg (r>0.999). The average recoveries under the 3 spiked levels of different matrix samples were 81.6%~110.5%, and the relative standard deviations (RSD, n=6) were 3.44%~14.2%. The total contents of four furans in biscuit, rice flour, cake, fruit puree and meat puree were <0.2~497.3 μg/kg, 1.8~90.1 μg/kg, <0.2~25.5 μg/kg, 3.7~44.2 μg/kg and 54.7~599.2 μg/kg, respectively. Conclusion: The proposed method could be applied to the detection of four furans in infant supplementary foods. Canned infant food contained high concentration of furan and methyl furan. It was necessary to formulate standard production processes and establish limits in order to reduce the exposure of furan and methylfuran in infan.