Development and Validation of a Simple Ultra Fast Liquid Chromatographic Method for the Simultaneous Determination of Aspartame, Acesulfame-K, Caffeine and Sodium Benzoate in Dietic Soft Drinks

A rapid, specific, and sensitive ultra fast liquid chromatographic method for simultaneous determination of aspartame (ASP), acesulfame-K (ACE-K), caffeine (CAF) and sodium benzoate (SB) has been developed and validated. The chromatographic separation was achieved on a Shim-pack XR-ODS column within a run time of 3 min using acetonitrile‒pH 3 phosphate buffer (20 : 80, v/v) as the mobile phase at a flow rate 1.5 mL/min and the column temperature was set at 40°C. The elaborated method was validated according to the International Conference on Harmonization quidelines. Linear calibration graphs were in the ranges of 120‒280 µg/mL for ASP and ACE-K, 90‒210 µg/mL for CAF and 60‒140 µg/mL for SB. The limits of detection were 1.6, 4.3, 3.9 and 4.1 µg/mL for ASP, ACE-K, CAF and SB, respectively. The limits of quantitation were 5.2, 14.4, 12.9 and 13.7 µg/mL for ASP, ACE-K, CAF and SB, respectively. The intra- and inter-day precisions were less than 2%. The recoveries for the analytes were between 98.87‒99.73% and the precision values from 0.06 to 0.35.