Quantitative determination of ethyl carbamate in alcoholic beverages using gas chromatography coupled to ion mobility spectrometer

Ethyl carbamate (EC), a carcinogen in alcoholic beverages, poses a potential hazard to human health. This study developed a gas chromatography-Fourier deconvolution ion mobility spectrometry (GC-FDIMS) method with ammonia dopant for EC quantification. The anhydrous MgSO 4 dehydration-assisted dichloromethane extraction of EC in alcoholic beverages simplified the sample pretreatment. The IMS system was established by the FD technique to improve the resolution and sensitivity. The results showed that the limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) for EC were 0.34 ng/mL and 1.16 ng/mL. The RSDs of the intraday precision and interday precision were in the range of 2.72 %–13.74 %, and the average recovery was between 81.93 % and 100.58 %. The developed method exhibited satisfactory quantitative performance for EC in various alcoholic beverage samples (beer, yellow rice wine, rice wine, and red wine) with the advantage of high sensitivity, fast separation, good specificity, and low cost.