A high-performance liquid chromatography–evaporative light scattering detection–based quantitative analytical method for polyvinyl alcohol in food supplements with pyrolysis–gas chromatography/mass spectrometry-based verification

Polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) is extensively used in agricultural, pharmaceutical, textile, and food industries. A new high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method with evaporative light scattering detection (ELSD) was developed for the quantitative analysis of PVOH products. Pyrolysis–gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (Py–GC/MS) was employed for method verification. The HPLC–ELSD method exhibited acceptable linearity (R2 > 0.99), with limits of detection and quantitation of 19.43 and 58.88 μg/mL, respectively. Accuracies of 91.16–102.30% were estimated based on recoveries of the intra- and inter-day tests of PVOH. Repeatability and intermediate precision (%RSD) of 1.23–4.45 and 2.18–6.95, respectively, were obtained. The presence of PVOH in the HPLC peaks was further verified using typical indicators of PVOH in Py–GC/MS analysis, such as acetaldehyde, 2,5-dihydrofuran, benzaldehyde, and crotonaldehyde. This novel HPLC method with Py–GC/MS-based verification can be successfully applied for analyzing PVOH in dietary supplement tablets.