A novel method for determination of patulin in apple juices by GC–MS

A reliable gas chromatography–mass spectrometry with a QuEChERS procedure has been developed and validated for detection and determination of patulin in apple juice. This procedure includes initial extraction step with acetonitrile, partitioning step by addition of magnesium sulphate, sodium carbonate and sodium chloride, and clean-up step using dispersive solid-phase extraction by addition of a mixture of magnesium sulphate and primary secondary amine sorbent. In order to increase GC adoptability of patulin, derivatisation step was performed using N,O-bis-trimethylsilyl trifluoroacetamide. Method recoveries of patulin from apple juice samples ranged from 79.9% to 87.9%. Limit of detection (LOD) and quantification (LOQ) were 0.4 and 1.3 μg/L, respectively. Relative standard deviations were lower than 9.5%. The developed method has been successfully applied to the analysis of patulin in apple juice samples.