Rapid determination of ethyl carbamate in Chinese rice wine using headspace solid-phase microextraction and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry

Ethyl carbamate (EC) is a naturally occurring toxic contaminant that may imply a risk to human health and is usually found in alcoholic beverages such as Chinese rice wine. An automated procedure for the rapid determination of EC in Chinese rice wine was developed by headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) coupled to gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Using propyl carbamate as internal standard, the optimized HS-SPME sampling with a polyacrylic fibre was 45 min at 70°C after applying 38.8% NaCl to saturate the sample. This method showed good linearity over a range of 25–600 µg L−1 (R2 = 0.997). The recovery, relative standard deviation and limit of detection were 90.21–97.35%, lower than 2.89% and 1.19 µg L−1, respectively. Additionally, the ethanol concentration had no effect on the analysis of EC. The total analysis time of 57 min per sample in continuous determination was twice as fast as the widely used solid-phase extraction–GC-MS method. This solvent-free HS-SPME-GC-MS procedure is suitable for the rapid, automated, and therefore convenient, determination of EC in Chinese rice wine. Copyright © 2012 The Institute of Brewing & Distilling