Abstract: A novel method for rapid analysis of the migration amounts of 28 primary aromatic amines (PAAs) in aqueous food simulants (10% ethanol, 30 g/L acetic acid and 20% ethanol aqueous solution) was developed using high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS). After the migration test, the soaking solution was cooled down from 100 ℃, vortexed, filtered through a hydrophilic polytetrafluoroethylene filter with a disposable syringe, and then the filtrate was analyzed by HPLC-MS/MS. A Zorbax SB-Phenyl column (250 mm×4.6 mm, 5 μm) was selected for chromatography. The mobile phase consisted of water and 0.1% formic acid-25% acetonitrile-methanol solution with gradient elution. The 28 PAAs in aqueous food simulants were detected by tandem mass spectrometer operated in positive electrospray ionization (ESI+)and multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. The limits of quantification for the 28 PAAs were between 0.002 μg/L and 10 μg/L. The linearity of the method was good with correlation coefficients (r2) greater than 0.995 over the concentration range from 5 μg/L or 10 μg/L to 100 μg/L. The average recoveries of the 28 PAAs were between 76.6% and 114% with the relative standard deviations between 1.53% and 8.97% at the levels of 10, 20, and 40 μg/L. The method shows rapid pretreatment, the lower limits of quantification, good recoveries and accuracies, and meets the requirement of European Union (EU)No 10/2011 regulation for the specific migration of PAAs. The method has been applied to analyze the 28 PAAs in different aqueous food simulants from the migration test of 30 batches of food contact material samples exported to EU.

Key words: aqueous food simulants, food contact material, migration amount, primary aromatic amines, liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS)