RESUMO
Background: Acesulfame-K (ACE), butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), and aspartame (ASP) are a common combination of food additives added to chewing gums. The abuse of these additives results in severe adverse health effects; however, they are still extensively used owing to their high performance and low cost. Objective: The development and optimization of a simple, cheap, sensitive, and eco-friendly HPLC/UV method for the simultaneous determination of ASP, ACE, and BHT along with aspartame degradation product phenylalanine (PHEN) in chewing gum. Methods: The method was optimized using a 5 µm C18 column and an eluent consisting of methanol and 0.1 M phosphate buffer (pH 5.0) according to a suitable gradient elution program. Simple sample preparation, consisting of dilution, homogenization, and sonication followed by centrifugation and filtration, was optimized and used for the extraction of chewing gum. The greenness of the method was evaluated. Results: The proposed method exhibited excellent linearity (R² > 0.9996), low LOQ (0.08-0.95 µg/mL), and recoveries between 85.3 and 98.83% with relative SD (RSD) ≤ 2.7%. High resolution was obtained with <25 min run times with excellent precision (RSD: 0.28-1.33%). This method was successfully applied for the simultaneous determination of ACE, ASP, and BHT in commercial chewing gum; PHEN was not detected. Furthermore, our method is considered to be environmentally acceptable. Conclusions: The results demonstrate that the developed method can be used to detect ACE, BHT, ASP, and PHEN in chewing gum. Highlights: A new sensitive, green HPLC/UV method is developed to be used as a minimal-cost routine analysis procedure for commercial chewing gum.