Determination of ascorbic acid and its degradation products by high-performance liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry

This study describes application of liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (LC-MS) for evaluation of vitamin C stability, the objective being prediction of the degradation products. Detection was performed with an UV detector (UV-Vis) in sequence with a triple-quad mass spectrometer in the multiple reaction mode. The negative ion mode of ESI and MS-MRM transitions of m/z 175→115 (quantifier) and 175→89 (qualifier) for ascorbic acid was used. All the validation parameters were within the range of acceptance proposed by the Food and Drug Administration. The method was fully validated in terms of linearity, LOD, LOQ, accuracy, and interday precision. Validation experiments revealed good linearity with R(2) = 0.999 within the established concentration range, and excellent repeatability (9.3%). The LOD of the method was 0.1524 ng/mL whereas the LOQ was 0.4679 ng/mL. LC-MS methodology proves to be an improved, simple, and fast approach to determining the content of vitamin C and its degradation products with high sensitivity, selectivity, and resolving power within 6 minutes of analysis.