This document describes a procedure for the determination of aflatoxins B1, B2, G1 and G2 and total aflatoxins (sum of B1, B2, G1 and G2) in spices for which EU maximum levels are established, other than paprika, by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with post-column derivatization (PCD) and fluorescence detection (FLD) after immunoaffinity column (IAC) clean-up.
The method is applicable to the spices capsicum (excluding paprika), pepper, nutmeg, ginger, turmeric and mixtures thereof.
The method has been validated for aflatoxins B1, B2, G1 and G2 and total aflatoxins in a range of test samples that comprised: ginger, pepper, nutmeg, chilli, turmeric as individual spices and mixed pepper + chilli + nutmeg (90 + 5 + 5, m + m + m), mixed spice+ginger (6 + 4, m + m) mixed spice, mixed turmeric+ginger (2 + 8, m + m).
The validation was carried out over the following concentration ranges: aflatoxin B1 = 1 µg/kg to 16 µg/kg and total aflatoxins = 2,46 µg/kg to 36,1 µg/kg.