Identifier: TFG:125
Authors: Maceira Torrents, Alba
Abstract:
Currently, sweeteners are an attractive alternative to replace the sugar because they are not sources of calories to our body. Due to the widespread use of sweeteners in food, drinks, drugs and sanitary products, these additives have been suggested as emerging organic contaminants (EOCs) because they are introduced in the environment by different pathways. In this work, different materials for two extraction techniques (solid-phase extraction (SPE) and stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE)) were evaluated for the determination of six artificial sweeteners (aspartame, saccharin, cyclamate, sucralose, acesulfame and neohespiridine dihydrochalcone) and a natural sweetener (stevioside) in environmental waters. Two different polar coatings for SBSE, poly(ethyleneglycol) (PEG) and polyacrylate (PA), were tested for the extraction of these compounds but no recovery was observed for analytes. Two different mixed-mode ion-exchange polymeric sorbents, Oasis MAX and WAX, were evaluated for the SPE and Oasis WAX provide better results. Therefore, we develop a method to determine these seven sweeteners in river water using SPE with weak anion-exchange polymeric sorbents (WAX) followed by liquid chromatography – (negative electrospray) – mass spectrometry (LC-(ESI(-))-MS). The analysis of three different rivers from Spain showed that acesulfame, saccharine, cyclamate and sucralose can be found in the aquatic environment at concentrations up to 0.1 μg L-1. Acesulfame and sucralose found at higher concentrations, 1.13 μg L-1 and 1.71 μg L-1, respectively.
Repositori URV