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Abstract
Desorption corona beam ionisation (DCBI), the relatively novel ambient mass spectrometry (MS) technique, was utilised to screen for illicit additives in weight-loss food. The five usually abused chemicals – fenfluramine, N-di-desmethyl sibutramine, N-mono-desmethyl sibutramine, sibutramine and phenolphthalein – were detected with the proposed DCBI-MS method. Fast single-sample and high-throughput analysis was demonstrated. Semi-quantification was accomplished based on peak areas in the ion chromatograms. Four illicit additives were identified and semi-quantified in commercial samples. As there was no tedious sample pre-treatment compared with conventional HPLC methods, high-throughput analysis was achieved with DCBI. The results proved that DCBI-MS is a powerful tool for the rapid screening of illicit additives in weight-loss dietary supplements.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Mr Joseph Ting, Mr Junsheng Zhang, Mr Lijie Yang, Mr Yupeng Cheng and Dr Xiaoqiang Zhang for their help in equipment fabrication and its improvement. This work was financially supported by the National ‘863’ Research Foundation of China (Grant Number 2010AA023001), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number 21005027) aid programme for science and technology innovation research team in higher education institutions of Hunan province, and the Science Research Foundation of Hunan province (Grant Number 2010TT1001, 05k009).