Rapid screening of illicit additives in weight loss dietary supplements with desorption corona beam ionisation (DCBI) mass spectrometry

Desorption corona beam ionisation (DCBI), the relatively novel ambient mass spectrometry (MS) technique, was utilised to screen for illicit additives in weight-loss food. The five usually abused chemicals - fenfluramine, N-di-desmethyl sibutramine, N-mono-desmethyl sibutramine, sibutramine and phenolphthalein - were detected with the proposed DCBI-MS method. Fast single-sample and high-throughput analysis was demonstrated. Semi-quantification was accomplished based on peak areas in the ion chromatograms. Four illicit additives were identified and semi-quantified in commercial samples. As there was no tedious sample pre-treatment compared with conventional HPLC methods, high-throughput analysis was achieved with DCBI. The results proved that DCBI-MS is a powerful tool for the rapid screening of illicit additives in weight-loss dietary supplements.