In order to develop a fast investigation method for phthalate esters (PAEs) from vegetable oils, a gas-liquid micro-extraction (GLME) technique that combined with GC-MS was established. A vegetable oil sample (0.1 g) was directly added into the GLME device. The integrated process of extraction, clean-up, and concentration of PAEs was completed within 5 min. Internal standard method was applied to ensure the accuracy of the results. Soybean oil, blend oil, olive oil, and sesame oil were spiked with 200 μg/kg of a mixed 15 PAEs standard, and the ranges of the recoveries and RSDs were between 60.0% to 112.3% and 0.9% to 28.4%, respectively. Compared with some traditional sample pretreatment methods such as liquid-liquid extraction, liquid-liquid micro-extraction, gel permeation chromatography, this method is simple and fast, with high accuracy, good repeatability and low matrix effect. This study verified the suitability of the GLME method for field detection of food products in food safety sector and exhibits great significance for the completion of food safety system in China.
Keywords: gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS); gas-liquid micro-extraction (GLME); phthalate esters (PAEs); vegetable oils.