GC/MS-MID Determination of Safrole in Soft Drinks

Safrole [1,3-benzodioxole, 5-(2-propenyl)-] is a limited substance according to the CE Directives N. 88/388 and 91/71 concerning “flavourings for use in foodstuffs and to source materials for their production”. At today the GC analytical methods proposed for the quantitative determination of safrole are critical as far as concerning reproducibility, recovery values and detection limits. This note describes an improved analytical method to quantify safrole in “soft” drinks. Average recoveries of safrole from samples spiked at levels from 30.0 to 80.0 microg/L ranged from 80 to 93% with good reproducibility (RSD=2.7 at 30.0 microg/Ll). Limits of detection (LOD) and quantification (LOQ) were 10.0 microg/L and 30.0 microg/L respectively. The proposed method is also suitable for routine analysis.