This European Standard describes a procedure for the determination of the zearalenone content in edible vegetable oils specifically maize germ oil by either of the following techniques: High performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection (LC-FLD) or high performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) after basic extraction of the diluted oil.
The method has been validated for zearalenone in naturally contaminated maize germ oil at levels of 61,2 µg/kg to 515 µg/kg [5].
Laboratory experiences [6] have shown that this method is also applicable to other vegetable oils such as wheat germ oil (n = 4), sunflower oil (n = 5), pumpkin seed oil (n = 1), soybean oil (n = 5), hemp seed oil (n = 5), rape seed oil (n = 11), and mixed oils including maize germ oil (n = 3). However occasionally, samples can result in interferences in the FLD-chromatograms. In this case, the detection with MS/MS is recommended.