g-C<sub>3</sub>N<sub>4</sub>/Fe<sub>3</sub>O<sub>4</sub> Nanocomposites as Adsorbents Analyzed by UPLC-MS/MS for Highly Sensitive Simultaneous Determination of 27 Mycotoxins in Maize: Aiming at Increasing Purification Efficiency and Reducing Time
Shuai Ma, Li Pan, Tianyan You, Kun Wang
Abstract
According to known studies, numerous mycotoxins have been found simultaneously in foods and have a certain expansion toxicity, so the simultaneous detection of multiple mycotoxins is absolutely critical. In this article, multifunctional magnetic g-C3N4/Fe3O4 nanocomposites have been fabricated to employ as modified QuEChERS adsorbents. In addition, they were also used in conjunction with ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS), an accurate quantitative approach, to analyze 27 mycotoxins in maize. The improved method not only has a powerful adsorption effect on the complex matrix by g-C3N4/Fe3O4 but also enables magnetic separation from the sample solution. Experiments proved that this method can exhibit good linearity under the appropriate and optimal external environment (r2 ≥ 0.9954), high sensitivity (the threshold of detection limit is 0.0004–0.6226 μg kg–1, and the threshold of quantification limit is 0.0014–2.0753 μg kg–1), adequate recoveries (77.81–115.21%), and excellent repeatability (with a threshold of intraday precision of 1.5–10.8% and interday precision in the range of 2.9–12.5%). In practice this method has been used to evaluate a variety of mycotoxins in maize specimens, and certain actual outcomes have been achieved.