ABSTRACT
Previous published methods for the analysis of ETU and PTU are time-consuming and furthermore use dichloromethane (DCM) for extraction or clean-up. This study details the development and validation of a rapid method that combines a simple extraction step with UHPLC-ESI(+)-MS/MS. This is the first application of UHPLC-MS/MS to analyse these compounds. Besides that, we replaced DCM with a more environmental-friendly solvent. The analytical performance was evaluated with the analysis of spiked celery samples at 50 µg kg(-1) (LOQ) and 300 µg kg(-1). The recoveries were between 65% and 90% for ETU and between 71% and 127% for PTU with RSDs in repeatability and reproducibility conditions below 10% for ETU. This method is rapid (a chromatographic run time of 2 min) and can easily be performed (no laborious clean-up). The presented method is environmental friendly with significant reduction in solvent consumption.
