| Aflatoxins are cancer-causing toxins that are produced by the molds Apsergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus. Aflatoxins can contaminate a wide range of food products such as corn, peanuts, pistachios and cereal based foods under appropriate conditions, but the risk of aflatoxin contamination is greater in corn. Traditional methods for extraction and detection of aflatoxins B1 is based on immune-affinity column for sample cleanup followed by liquid chromatography (LC) or capillary electrophoresis (CE) analysis. These sample preparation methods, however, are expensive, require many steps, and increase analysis time. This paper presents a rapid and simple method for the determination of Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) in corn products using Disposable Pipette Extraction (DPX) followed by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) analysis. Different solid phase extraction sorbents were evaluated, and the SDVB (styrene divinylbenzene) sorbent was found to provide the highest recovery. The chromatographic analysis of aflatoxins was accomplished using a C18 column eluted with an isocratic mobile phase consisting of methanol, acetonitrile and water. The mean recovery for aflatoxin B1 in the corn sample spiked with aflatoxin B1 at 2 ppb, 10 ppb and 100 ppb were found to be 89.7%, 91.2% and 95.8% respectively. |
