Development of a capillary zone electrophoresis method to determine natamycin in food and a comparison with a liquid
Xiaobin Li1, Fangfang Gao1, Huitao Liu1
1College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Yantai University, Yantai, P. R. China.
Background:
Natamycin is often added to pastries, cheeses, and beverages. The residual amount of natamycin should be less than 10 mg kg-1 . The current method for its determination in various foodstuffs is high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is a simple, fast, and environmentally friendly method with low reagent consumption and comparable separation performance. However, no reports were found on the determination of natamycin in foods by CE. A CE method to determine natamycin is therefore sought.
Results:
Natamycin in foods was determined by the capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) method with ultraviolet-visible (UV) detection. Separation conditions were optimized as 20 mM Na2 HPO4 , pH 9.2, with 25 kV applied voltage, and UV detection at 306 nm. Under optimal conditions, electrophoretic analysis was completed in less than 4 min, with a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.065 μg mL-1 and limit of quantitation (LOQ) of 0.22 μg mL-1 . A good linear relationship (r2 = 0.999) was obtained at the range of 0.1-25 μg mL-1 . A comparison with the HPLC-UV method was also carried out according to the National Standards of the People's Republic of China.
Conclusion:
The results obtained by the CZE and HPLC methods are comparable but the proposed CZE method can help us obtain a shorter detection time at low cost. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry.
