The development and validation of a novel, green, sustainable and eco-friendly HPLC-ELSD method approach for the simultaneous determination of seven artificial sweeteners in various food products: An assessment of the greenness profile of the developed method with an analytical eco-scale, NEMI, GAPI and AGREE

Minimizing the generation of hazardous chemical waste in routine chromatographic separations has become a critical issue. Here, we introduce a totally green, eco-friendly, novel, sensitive, rapid, robust and simple HPLCELSD approach for the simultaneous determination of seven artificial sweeteners which are commonly used in various food samples. The mobile phase was totally free from any toxic solvents or additives. Only water and ethanol were used as the best green alternative solvents for each step of the analysis. Separations were carried out on a C18 column (3.5 & mu;m particle size, 150 mm x 4.6 mm id.) by gradient elution using water-ethanol mixture as a mobile phase. The drift tube of ELSD temperature was adjusted to 50 degrees C and the N2 gas pressure was adjusted to 350 kPa, the Gain value to 7, and the Filter value to 10 on the HPLC-ELSD system. The developed and validated HPLC-ELSD method provided LOD and LOQ in the range of 1.40-2.23 & mu;g mL-1, 4.67-7.43 & mu;g mL-1 respectively, with recoveries between 98.06 and 102.43%. The method precision (RSD) was found to be lower than 1.0%. The applied HPLC-ELSD method permitted the simultaneous determination of seven artificial sweeteners in under fifteen minutes, consuming only 4.3 mL of a green organic solvent (Ethanol). Moreover, the Greenness assessment of the present HPLC-ELSD method was evaluated using NEMI, Analytical Eco-scale, AGREE and GAPI.

Automated summary

Here, a novel HPLC-ELSD method is introduced for the simultaneous determination of seven artificial sweeteners in food samples. The method is environmentally friendly, using non-toxic solvents and providing accurate and rapid results.