Quantitative analysis of oxygen heterocyclic compounds using liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry, method development and environmental assessment

The latest trends in the field of laboratory method development concern the validation of fast procedures, and the safety of the operator and environment. The present research is focused on the development of fast and environmentally-friendly analytical method of liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry for the determination of oxygen heterocyclic compounds in Citrus-flavored products. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first approach for the characterization of thirty-six oxygen heterocyclic compounds in less than four minutes using water/ethanol as mobile phase. Molecules were characterized in Citrus essential oils and beverages. Figures of merit determined were linearity, precision, limits of detection and quantification. The method was compared in terms of greenness with our two methodologies previously published for analysis of oxygen heterocyclic compounds. The analytical greenness metric approach and the “RGB model” were used. According to these approaches, the method proposed here is faster, safer and more eco-friendly.