Fluorescence detection and determination of patulin by thin‐layer chromatography of its aniline imine
Abstract A sensitive and simple procedure is described for the analysis of the mycotoxin patulin. The method involves extraction of patulin from the sample, silica gel column Chromatographic clean‐up, preparation of the aniline imine, thin‐layer Chromatographic separation on silica gel, hydrogen chloride hydrolysis of the imine, and fluorophore formation from the liberated aniline with fluorescamine. A linear calibration curve was obtained for the 10–100 ng range and the limit of detection was 5 ng. Recoveries of patulin from samples of apple juice spiked at 50–500 ppb were quantitative.