A rapid and simple gas chromatographic method for direct determination of safrole in soft drinks

A simple and rapid method was developed to determine the safrole and isosafrole in soft drink using a megapore semi-polar column (CP-SIL 8CB, 30 m x 0.53 mm. 1.5 mum) 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 mug/mL. A recovery study was performed using one of the soft drinks by spiking 1 mL with safrole and isosafrole at 5.0 and 10.0 mug, respectively. The recovery was found in the range of 98-108% with coefficients of variation being less than 8.7%. Twenty-five commercial soft drinks were analyzed by the current method, and results indicated that 20 out of 25 soft drink samples contained safrole and/or isosafrole, and the amount of safrole was 3-5 fold over the regulated amount, 1 mug/mL.