Simultaneous Determination of Nine Intense Sweeteners in Foodstuffs by High Performance Liquid Chromatography and Evaporative Light Scattering Detection - Development and Single-Laboratory Validation

A high performance liquid chromatographic method with evaporative light scattering detection (HPLC-ELSD) has been developed for the simultaneous determination of multiple sweeteners, i.e., acesulfame-K, alitame, aspartame, cyclamic acid, dulcin, neotame, neohesperidine dihydrochalcone, saccharin and sucralose in carbonated and non-carbonated soft drinks, canned or bottled fruits and yoghurt. The procedure involves an extraction of the nine sweeteners with a buffer solution, sample clean-up using solid-phase extraction cartridges followed by an HPLC-ELSD analysis. The trueness of the method was satisfactory with recoveries ranging from 93 to 109 % for concentration levels around the maximum usable dosages for authorised sweeteners and from 100 to 112 % for unauthorised compounds at concentration levels close to the limit of quantification (LOQs). Precision measures showed mean repeatability values of <4 % (expressed as relative standard deviation) for highly concentrated samples and <5 % at concentration levels close to the LOQs. Intermediate precision was in most cases