Journal of Food Safety and Quality

Objective To establish 2 kinds of methods for the determination of 17-pentatriacontene in honey by gas chromatography-flame ionization detection (GC-FID) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Methods After dissolved in water, the sample was extracted with petroleum ether, purified on a florisil cartridge, separated by DB-5MS column (15 m×0.25 mm, 0.25 μm), and determined by GC-FID and GC-MS, then quantified by external standard method. Results The GC-FID and GC-MS were quantified using matrix-free standard curve and matrix-matched standard curve respectively, with limits of quantification of 1.0 mg/kg and 0.5 mg/kg, linear ranges of 1–100 mg/kg and 0.5–40.0 mg/kg, and recovery rates ranging from 88.9% to 94.5% and from 91.2% to 98.2%, respectively. The relative standard deviations were 4.0%–6.4% and 4.6%–7.3%, respectively. The results of the 2 kinds of methods were basically consistent, with a relative deviation of no more than 2.4%. The proposed methods were applied to 158 honey samples of Apis cerana honey and Apis mellifera honey, 17-pentatriacontene was only detected in Apis cerana honey, with a content range of 0.58–51.10 mg/kg. Conclusion The accuracy and precision of the GC-FID and GC-MS methods established in this study are both good, and the 2 kinds of methods can be applied to the determination of 17-pentatriacontene in honey. The results of real sample tested indicate that 17-pentatriacontene can be used as a characteristic marker for Apis cerana honey.

17-pentatriacontene; Apis cerana honey; Apis mellifera honey; characteristic compounds; gas chromatography-flame ionization detection; gas chromatography-mass spectrometry