Direct Determination of Safrole and Isosafrole from Soft Drinks by Gas Chromatographic Method

Abstract

A high concentration (0.5%) of safrole and isosafrole has been shown to increase the occurrence rate of malignant tumors in mice. The major toxicity of safrole and isosafrole come from their carcinogenic nature after oxidation. For this reason, a simple and rapid method was developed to determine the safrole and isosafrole in soft drink using a semi-polar column Rtx 625 with direct injection gas chromatography. Direct quantitative analysis of safrole and isosafrole in soft drinks was carried out without any sample pretreatment procedure. The water soluble compound 1, 4-dihydroxybenzene (DHB) was used as the internal standard. The detection limit for safrole and isosafrole was 0.25 μg/mL. Seven commercial soft drinks were analyzed by the current method, and results indicated that these seven commercial soft drink samples contained safrole but isosafrole cannot be identified. One reason for this, isosafrole may be used after derivitization.