Abstract: A simple and fast method for the simultaneous determination of two mouldy compounds, 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA) and 2,4,6-tribromoanisole (TBA), in cork by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was established. The analytes were extracted by ultrasonic extraction with methanol, and purified then by solid phase extraction using primary secondary amine (PSA) as solid phase. After concentrating, the sample was analyzed by GC-MS and quantified by the external standard method. The linear ranges were from 10 μg/L to 10000 μg/L for TCA and TBA, the correlation coefficients (r2) of the calibration curves were above 0.99. The recoveries and the relative standard deviations (RSDs) of TCA and TBA in different kinds of corks were investigated. The recoveries ranged from 88.4% to 97.6% with the RSDs between 1.02% and 4.58% (n=6). The limits of detection (LODs) were 12 μg/L for TCA and 18 μg/L for TBA, and the limits of quantification (LOQs) were 40 μg/L for TCA and 50 μg/L for TBA. The method is suitable to the determination of TCA and TBA in corks.

Key words: 2,4,6-tribromoanisole (TBA), 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA), cork, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS)