Abstract:This study investigated the application of ultra-performance liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) in the analysis of glycidyl esters (GEs) in edible vegetable oils. By increasing the loading quantity of sample for pretreatment, the analytical concentration of the target substance was increased while satisfying the detection requirements for samples with lower GE contents. The elution procedure for the mobile phase was optimized to avoid mobile phase-induced loss of stationary phase and reduce the use of organic solvents. As a result, the total elution time was only 15.2 min, which made the analysis more efficient. After the quantitative ion pairs and collision energies were optimized in daughter ion mode, the multiple reaction monitoring mode (MRM) was adopted to quantify the five GEs in more specific way. The minimum detection limit of the five GEs ranged from 0.0045 to 0.023 mg/kg, and the average recovery rate was 96.16%~107.02% with the relative standard deviation as 1.98%~5.74%. Accordingly, this method has strong operability, high sensitivity and good reproducibility, and can meet the requirements for efficient, accurate and quantitative analysis of GEs in actual edible vegetable oils.
