Selected product ion monitoring for quantification of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural in food products by capillary zone electrophoresis-tandem ion trap mass spectrometry

- A rapid method for HMF determination by CE-MS-MS has been optimized.
- The method was applied to the analysis of several food samples.
- Simple sample pretreatment with no SPE, usually employed.
- Results compared with HPLC-UV data were not significantly different.

5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) is an important marker of food processing and storage widely recognized as an important parameter of food freshness and quality. Its amount depends on the composition of a food product and on the thermal treatments to which the food is subjected. The aim of this work was to propose for the first time the optimization and validation of an innovative CE-MS2 method for the quantification of HMF in food products exploiting selected product ion monitoring as acquisition mode. The method was applied to the analysis of different kind of samples: cereal-based baby foods, coffee, soft beverages and vinegars. In order to show the reliability of the proposed method, results were compared with those obtained by RP-HPLC-UV, and a good accordance between the two sets of data was found.