Sensitive determination of organic acid preservatives in juices and soft drinks treated by monolith-based stir cake sorptive extraction and liquid chromatography analysis

A simple, efficient, and sensitive method for simultaneous determination of sorbic acid (SA), benzoic acid (BA), and cinnamic acid (CA) in juices and soft drinks was developed by stir cake sorptive extraction (SCSE) coupling to high-performance liquid chromatography with diode array detection. The SCSE based on polymeric ionic liquid-based monolith (PILM) as extractive medium was used to concentrate these three organic acid preservatives. Because hydrophobic and ion-exchange interactions co-contributed to the extraction, the PILM-SCSE exhibited a high extractive capability towards analytes. To obtain optimum extraction performance, several SCSE parameters were investigated and discussed, including desorption solvent, pH value, ionic strength in the sample matrix, and the extraction and desorption time. Under the optimized extraction conditions, limits of detection of 0.16, 1.08, and 0.18 μg/L (S/N = 3) and quantification limits of 0.52, 3.42, and 0.61 (S/N = 10) were obtained for SA, BA, and CA, respectively. The method also showed good linearity and reproducibility, as well as advantages such as simplicity, low cost, and high feasibility. Finally, the proposed method was successfully applied to the determination of SA, BA, and CA in real juices and soft drinks, and the recoveries ranged from 63.0 to 107 %.