Determination of eight phthalic acid esters in freshwater shellfish by high performance liquid chromatography

The method for the quantitative analysis of eight phthalic acid esters in freshwater shellfish was established by high performance liquid chromatography. The samples were extracted by hexane and dichloromethane (1∶1) and separated by an Agela venusil XBP-C18 column with the column temperature of25℃. The mobile phase was composed of methanol and water, and used with gradient elution at the flow rate of 1.0mL/min. The UV detection wavelength was 230 nm. The separation of eight phthalic acid esters was good.The standard curves were linear in the range from 0.5 to 50μg/mL, with the limits of detection ranging from0.2μg/mL to 0.5μg/mL. The additional standard recoveries of the method were in the range from 91.06%~107.23%, and the relative standard deviation from 0.34% to 3.67%. The proposed method could be applied to the determination of phthalic acid esters in shellfish.