Abstract: A method for the determination of fluorescent whitening agents in plastic food contact materials by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with fluorescence detector was developed. The samples were extracted with trichloromethane by sonication for 30 min at 40 ℃. The HPLC method was performed on a column of Eclipse XDB-C18 (250 mm×4.6 mm, 5 μm) by gradient elution using 5 mmol/L ammonium acetate and acetonitrile as the mobile phases, and detected by the fluorescence detector at an excitation wavelength of 350 nm and an emission wavelength of 430 nm. The experimental results indicated that the four fluorescent whitening agents were separated well. The limits of detection (LOD) (S/N=3) were 0.3, 0.1, 0.05, 0.14 mg/L, and the limits of quantification (LOQ) (S/N=10) were 1.0, 0.4, 0.2, 0.5 mg/L for 1,4-bis(4-cyanostyryl)benzene (C.I. 199), 1,4-bis(2-benzoxazolyl)naphthalene (C.I. 367), 4,4′-bis(2-methoxystyryl)biphenyl (C.I. 378) and 2,5-thiophenediylbis (5-tert-butyl-1,3-benzoxazole) (C.I. 184), respectively. Good linearities with correlation coefficients (r2) not less than 0.991 were obtained. The proposed method is simple, accurate, sensitive and can meet the requirements of the routine determination of fluorescent whitening agents in entry-exit products.

Key words: fluorescence detection, fluorescent whitening agents (FWAs), food contact materials, plastic, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)