Tandem mass spectrometry in food safety assessment: The determination of phthalates in olive oil

A gas chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (GC–MS/MS) method for the detection of six phthalates in olive oil was developed. A gel permeation chromatography (GPC) clean-up step with cyclohexane:dichoromethane 7:3 as mobile phase was employed to remove the high-molecular mass species present in oil. Two ionization methodologies, i.e. electron (EI) and isobutane-chemical ionization (CI), were compared, in MS/MS mode, to achieve better analytical performances. An overall evaluation of all analytical parameters shows that the EI-MS/MS approach provides satisfactory results and is to be preferred to CI-MS/MS, at least in the case of the examined analytes. The observed accuracies, ranging from 71.7% to 112.2%, and the RSD values less than 9.7%, confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method in the assay of phthalate content in such a complex matrix as olive oil. The proposed protocol for the identification and assay of phthalates in olive oil might be of interest for the implementation of the QS (quality assurance scheme) for residue monitoring in food safety assessment.