Short liquid chromatographic method for determination of zearalenone and alpha-zearalenol

A rapid method has been developed for the determination of zearalenone and alpha-zearalenol, using liquid-liquid partition for sample extract cleanup followed by liquid chromatography (LC) with fluorescence detection. The same extract can also be used for determination of aflatoxin by LC. Relative standard deviations for the method based on duplicate analyses are 4.18% for artificially contaminated samples and 13.92% for naturally contaminated samples. The method was compared with the AOAC method of extraction and column chromatography extract cleanup, using the same LC conditions for quantitation for both methods. Results showed a correlation coefficient of 0.990 with a mean zearalenone content by this method of 987.8 ppb, and 732.6 ppb by the official AOAC method. The detection limit of this method is 2.2 ppb for zearalenone and 1.5 ppb for alpha-zearalenol.