Determination of Fourteen Fluorescent Whitening Agents in Cosmetics by HPLC-MS/MS

OBJECTIVE To establish a method for the determination of fourteen fluorescent whitening agents in cosmetics by HPLC-MS/MS. METHODS Samples were extracted on a Waters ACQUITY UPLC ®BEH C₁₈(2.1 mm×50 mm, 1.7 μm) column after ultrasonic extracted by DMF with the mobile phase consisted of methanol-0.1% ammonia water solution by gradient elution. The flow rate was 0.3 mL·min^-1. The column temperature was 40 ℃. MS was performed using triple quadrupole mass spectrometry. Electrospray ionization source was operated in the positive/negative mode using multiple reaction monitoring scanning mode. RESULTS The results showed that there were good linear relationships for the fluorescent whitening agents in a certain concentration range with correlation coefficients(r) greater than 0.99. The limits of quantification were 0.01-20 μg·g^-1 and the limits of detection were 0.004-8 μg·g^-1. The average recoveries at three spiked levels were in the range of 85.4%-108.9%, and the relative standard deviation were in the range of 0.3%-7.2%. CONCLUSION The method has high sensitivity, strong specificity, simple and convenient operation, and is suitable for the detection of fourteen fluorescent whitening agents in cosmetics.