Determination of T-2 Toxin in Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicines by GC-ECD

Gas chromatography with electron capture detection has been applied for the determination of T-2 toxin (T-2) in traditional Chinese herbal medicines (TCHM). The method consists of extracting the sample with aqueous methanol followed by cleanup of the resulting extract with an immunoaffinity column. T-2 was determined as its heptafluorobutyl ester. The reaction temperature and time of derivatization were investigated to obtain the optimum conditions. Recoveries from different TCHMs, spiked with T-2 at levels ranging from 50 to 1,000 μg kg−1, were from 82.2 to 98.6%, with relative standard deviations of less than 7.5%. The limit of detection was 2.5 μg kg−1. Out of 32 commercially available TCHM samples analyzed, none were found to contain any detectable amount of T-2.