Abstract
Since the invention of synthetic sweeteners, there has been considerable debate regarding the safety of some of these sweeteners due to their poor thermal stability. Sodium saccharin is a synthetic sweetener used to modulate the flavor of fried nuts and seeds. The change in saccharin sodium during high-temperature frying was investigated, and a detection method for saccharin sodium and its frying product, o-sulfamoylbenzoic acid, was established using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Sodium saccharin will be completely decomposed at 190 °C for 40 min by frying. O-sulfamoylbenzoic acid is the decomposition product of sodium saccharin under high-temperature frying conditions. An HPLC method was developed for the simultaneous determination of sodium saccharin and o-sulfamoylbenzoic acid. When the UV wavelength was 264 nm, the mobile phase was an acetonitrile-0.1% formic acid aqueous solution with gradient elution, and the detection was performed using HPLC. The detection limit of sodium saccharin was 0.045 mg/kg, and the limit of quantification (LOQ) was 0.135 mg/kg. O-sulfamoylbenzoic acid showed a detection limit of 0.056 mg/kg and a limit of quantification of 0.167 mg/kg. The recovery rate of spiked sodium saccharin ranged from 105.67 to 112.16% with relative standard deviations (RSDs) between 0.24 and 1.39%. The recovery rate of o-sulfamoylbenzoic acid spiked between 98.67 and 108.16% with relative standard deviations (RSDs) ranging from 0.13 to 1.51%. We employed the established method to conduct application detection and analysis of a range of commercially available snack foods. Saccharin sodium was detected, while o-sulfamoylbenzoic acid was not found.