Liquid chromatographic method for the determination of patulin in apple juice using solid-phase extraction Original Research Article

Patulin is a mold metabolite commonly encountered in decaying apples. The most of analytical methods consist of multiple liquid–liquid partition steps for the extraction of patulin in apple juice. In this study, two solid-phase extraction (SPE) techniques using a tandem polyvinylpolypyrrolidone-octadecyl (PVPP-C18) cartridge system and a hydrophilic lipophilic balanced (HLB) macroporous copolymer sorbent cartridge were developed for the analysis of patulin in apple juice. A portion of apple juice was applied to either tandem PVPP-C18 cartridge system or the HLB cartridge. Patulin was eluted with diethyl ether through the cartridge excluding much of the interfering phenolic impurities. The volume of apple juice applied to the cartridges and the volume of diethyl ether to elute patulin from the cartridges were optimized to exclude much of the interfering impurities during reversed-phase (C18) liquid chromatographic separation with UV detection at 276 nm, keeping the recovery higher than 90% for spiking levels of 25–100 μg/1.