Use of Mycosep multifunctional clean-up columns for the determination of trichothecenes in wheat by electron capture gas chromatography

A quick and reliable method is described for the determination of trichothecene mycotoxins employing gas chromatography with electron capture detection. Using the Mycosep(R) multifunctional clean-up columns the clean-up procedure is reduced to a 1-step extract purification, thus saving considerable time in comparison with classical clean-up methods, without sacrificing the purity of the extract. The method was tested and validated for five trichothecenes (deoxynivalenol, nivalenol, 3-acetyl-deoxynivalenol, 15-acetyl-deoxynivalenol and fusarenon X). In addition, the performance of this new clean-up technique was compared with an already well established method.