Abstract: An ultra performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometric (UPLC-ESI-MS/MS) method was established for the direct determination of ethyl carbamate in Chinese rice wine and grape wine. The Chinese rice wine and grape wine samples were diluted with distilled water, filtered through 0.22 μm microporous membrane. The LC separation was performed on a Waters Acquity UPLC system with a BEH C18 column, acetonitrile and 0.1% (v/v) acetic acid aqueous solution as the mobile phase. The ethyl carbamate was determined in the mode of electrospray positive ionization (ESI+) and multiple reaction monitoring (MRM). The butyl carbamate (BC) was used as the internal standard for the quantitative determination. The calibration curve showed good linearity in the range of 2~500 μg/L with the correlation coefficient greater than 0.995. The limit of detection (LOD) was 1.7 μg/L and the limit of quantification (LOQ) was 5.0 μg/L. The recoveries of the ethyl carbamate in Chinese rice wine and grape wine was in the range of 90%~102%. The relative standard deviations (RSDs) of intra-day and inter-day determinations were 0.8%~4.5% and 1.4%~5.6% (n=6). The results indicated that the proposed method is easy, fast, sensitive, and suitable for the determination of ethyl carbamate in Chinese rice wine and grape wine.

Key words: Chinese rice wine, electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS), ethyl carbamate, grape wine, ultra performance liquid chromatography (UPLC)