[Determination of 18 polychlorinated biphenyls in camellia seeds by multiple vortex and gas chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry].

A method based on the cleaning effects of different sorbents and gas chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (GC-QQQ-MS/MS) was developed for the determination of 18 polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in camellia seeds. The camellia seeds were extracted with acetonitrile, salted out with sodium chloride, then cleaned-up by QuEChERS with anhydrous MgSO4 , C18, primary secondary amine (PSA), and multi walled carbon nanotubes (NANO) using multiple vortex after the centrifugal separation, and finally analyzed by GC-QQQ-MS/MS in multiple reaction monitoring mode via positive electrospray ionization. All the 18 PCBs could be completely separated with an excellent linear relationship. The limits of detection for the 18 PCBs were 5 μg/kg. For all the samples, the mean spiked recoveries was 109.2% with relative standard deviations (RSDs) of 2.9%-6.2% ( n =3). The extraction, purification and analytical methods were developed and assessed. The method was successfully applied to the 48 samples from three main producing provinces of camellia seeds. All the 18 PCBs were not detected from the 48 samples.