Simultaneous determination of 2-furfural and 5-methyl-2-furfural using corona discharge ion mobility spectrometry.

A novel technique, corona discharge ion mobility spectrometry (CD-IMS), was developed for the qualitative and quantitative determination of 2-furfural (F) and 5-methyl-2-furfural (MF) in aqueous solutions. The limits of detection (LODs) were 5.3 x 10(-3) microg/mL for F and 6.7 x 10(-3) microg/mL for MF. The linear dynamic ranges of 1.16 x 10(-2) to 1.04 microg/mL and 2.20 x 10(-2) to 1.10 microg/mL were obtained for F and MF, respectively. The relative standard deviation was below 12% for both compounds. In addition to analysis of the individual compound, simultaneous determination of F and MF was also investigated. It was realized that F imposes a matrix effect on the MF signal and vice versa. The standard addition method was used to deal with the matrix effect. The recovery of the compounds in the synthetic samples validates the capability of the method.