Graphene oxide-coated stir bar sorptive extraction of trace aflatoxins from soy milk followed by high performance liquid chromatography-laser-induced fluorescence detection

ABSTRACT

Mycotoxins are potential food pollutants produced by fungi. Among them, aflatoxins (AFs) are the most toxic. Therefore, AFs were selected as models, and a sensitive, simple and green graphene oxide (GO)-based stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) method was developed for extraction and determination of AFs with high performance liquid chromatography-laser-induced fluorescence detector (HPLC-LIF). This method improved the sensitivity of AFs detection and solved the deposition difficulty of the direct use of GO as adsorbent. Several parameters including a spiked amount of NaCl, stirring rate, extraction time and desorption time were investigated. Under optimal conditions, the quantitative method had low limits of detection of 2.4–8.0 pg/mL, which were better than some reported AFs analytical methods. The developed method has been applied to soy milk samples with good recoveries ranging from 80.5 to 102.3%. The prepared GO-based SBSE can be used as a sensitive screening technique for detecting AFs in soy milk.

KEYWORDS:

• Aflatoxins
• graphene oxide
• stir bar sorptive extraction
• laser-induced fluorescence
• soy milk

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the science and technology research project of higher education institutions in Hebei province (project no. QN2017106).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary materials

Supplementary data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the science and technology research project of higher education institutions in Hebei province [QN2017106].