Green, Rapid, Robust Determination of Aspartame in Beverages by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography-Evaporative Light Scattering Detection (HPLC-ELSD): Method Development and Validation

AbstractAbstractIn recent years, eco-friendly approaches and reduction in the use of hazardous solvents have become important in applications of routine high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Despite its various health side effects, aspartame (ASP) is a widely used artificial sweetener due to its high sweetness and low cost. In this study, a green, eco-friendly, cost effective, rapid, robust, and simple high-performance liquid chromatography-evaporative light scattering detection (HPLC-ELSD) method has been developed and validated for the determination of ASP in beverages. Separation was conducted isocratically on a C18 (4.6 × 150 mm, 3.5 µm) column; the mobile phase consisted of 80:20 water:ethanol at a flow rate of 1 mL min−1. The drift tube of evaporative light scattering detection (ELSD) temperature was adjusted to 50 °C and the nitrogen pressure was adjusted to 350 kPa. The HPLC-ELSD method provided a limit of detection and a limit of quantification of 0.33–0.99 µg mL−1, with recoveries of 99.4 ± 0.68% and 102.8 ± 0.17%, respectively. The precision of the method as the relative standard deviation was less than 1%. The method permitted the determination of ASP within 8 min using only 6.4 mL water and 1.6 mL ethanol. This study shows that the developed HPLC-ELSD method is suitable for determination of ASP in the food industry.Keywords: Aspartamebeveragesgreen chemistryhigh-performance liquid chromatography-evaporative light scattering detection (HPLC-ELSD) AcknowledgementsThis research is supported by the Project Number 2204S035 of Anadolu University. The authors thank the Yunus Emre Vocational School and Health Services Research Laboratory of Anadolu University.Disclosure statementThe authors declare no conflicts of interest.Authors’ contributionsGöksel Arli: project administration, supervision, conceptualization, writing - reviewing and editing. Ebrar Acar: formal analysis, data curation, investigation, validation, software, methodology, writing - original draft. Murat Soyseven: visualization, formal analysis, data curation, investigation, validation, software, methodology, writing – original draft. Burcu Sezgin: visualization, formal analysis, data curation, investigation, validation, software, methodology, writing - original draft preparation.