A convenient group method for the gas chromatographic determination of aliphatic diamines in the four official EC food simulants

EC Directive 90/128/EEC prescribes for the aliphatic diamines ethylenediamine and hexamethylenediamine specific migration limits (SML) of 12 mg/kg and 2,4 mg/kg. On the other hand, there are no generally accepted methods of analysis available for compliance testing with the given restrictions. Therefore, a simple capillary gas chromatographic method with flame ionization detection was developed for the determination of ethylenediamine and hexamethylenediamine in food simulants. The method is based on a two-phase derivatization procedure with ethyl chloroformate using 1,3-diaminopropane as internal standard. The linearity and reproducibility of calibration curves for both diamines in all four food simulants were excellent. The overall recovery rates were very satisfactory. The detection limits for both diamines were much lower than the corresponding SML-values. The method which is considered to be also applicable to other aliphatic diamines is presented to EC commission and to CEN TC 194/SC 1 for getting approval s an official standard CEN method for specific migration determination of the restricted diamines