Identification of Benzophenone Analogs in Rice Cereal through Fast Pesticide Extraction and Ultrahigh-Performance Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry

A fast, robust, and sensitive analytical method was developed and validated for the simultaneous identification of benzophenone (BP) and nine BP analogs (BP-1, BP-2, BP-3, BP-8, 2-hydroxybenzophenone, 4-hydroxybenzophenone, 4-methyl-benzophenone [4-MBP], methyl-2-benzoylbenzoate, and 4-benzoylbiphenyl) in 25 samples of rice cereal. Fast pesticide extraction (FaPEx) coupled with ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry was applied. The developed method exhibited satisfactory linearity (r > 0.997), favorable recoveries between 71% and 119%, and a limit of detection ranging from 0.001 to 0.5 ng/g. The detection frequencies of BP, 4-MBP, and BP-3 were 100%, 88%, and 52%, respectively. BP had higher geometric levels, with a mean of 39.8 (19.1-108.9) ng/g, and 4-MBP had low levels, with a mean of 1.9 (1.3-3.3) ng/g. The method can be applied to routine rice cereal analysis at the nanogram-pergram level. For infants aged 0-3 years, the hazard quotients of BP and 4-MBP were lower than one, and the margin of exposure for BP was higher than 10,000, suggesting that rice cereal consumption poses no health concern for Taiwanese infants.

Automated summary

A fast, robust, and sensitive analytical method was developed for the identification of benzophenone and nine benzophenone analogs in rice cereal. The method exhibited satisfactory linearity, recoveries, and detection limits, and the results showed that the consumption of rice cereal by Taiwanese infants does not pose a health concern.