Development of a capillary zone electrophoresis method to determine natamycin in food and a comparison with a liquid chromatography method.

BACKGROUND: Natamycin is often added to pastries, cheeses, and beverages. The residual amount of natamycin should be less than 10 mg kg−1. The current method for its determination in various foodstuffs is high‐performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is a simple, fast, and environmentally friendly method with low reagent consumption and comparable separation performance. However, no reports were found on the determination of natamycin in foods by CE. A CE method to determine natamycin is therefore sought. RESULTS: Natamycin in foods was determined by the capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) method with ultraviolet‐visible (UV) detection. Separation conditions were optimized as 20 mM Na2HPO4, pH 9.2, with 25 kV applied voltage, and UV detection at 306 nm. Under optimal conditions, electrophoretic analysis was completed in less than 4 min, with a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.065 μg mL−1 and limit of quantitation (LOQ) of 0.22 μg mL−1. A good linear relationship (r2 = 0.999) was obtained at the range of 0.1–25 μg mL−1. A comparison with the HPLC‐UV method was also carried out according to the National Standards of the People's Republic of China. CONCLUSION: The results obtained by the CZE and HPLC methods are comparable but the proposed CZE method can help us obtain a shorter detection time at low cost. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]