Determination of patulin in commercial apple juice by micellar electrokinetic chromatography

A novel and validated micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography (MEKC) method using ultraviolet detection (UV) has been applied to the quantitative analysis of patulin (PAT) in commercial apple juice. n was extracted from samples with an ethylacetate solution. The micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography (MECK) parameters studied for method optimization were buffer composition, voltage, temperature, and a separation between PAT and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) (main interference in apple juice PAT analysis) peaks until reaching baseline. thod passes a series of validation tests including selectivity, linearity, limit of detection and quantification (0.7 and 2.5 μg L−1, respectively), precision (within and between-day variability) and recovery (80.2% RSD = 4%), accuracy, and robustness. This method was successfully applied to the measurement of 20 apple juice samples obtained from different supermarkets. One hundred percent of the samples were contaminated with a level greater than the limit of detection, with mean and median values of 41.3 and 35.7 μg L−1, respectively.