Analysis of Alcohols and Esters in Chinese Liquor by Capillary Gas Chromatography

A GC method was established to determine alcohols and esters in Chinese liquor by chromatographic separation on a medium polarity capillary column(SPB-1701,30 m × 0.25 mm,0.25 μm).Under optimized conditions,24 compounds from Chinese liquor including alcohols and esters could be effectively separated.The limits of detection of the GC method for methanol,n-propanol,isobutanol,isopentanol,ethyl acetate and ethyl caproate as important ingredients for the control of safety and quality of Chinese liquor varied from 0.4 to 1.8μg/mL,the precision(relative standard deviation,RSD) for 6 replicate determinations were 0.04%-3.19%,and the average spike recovery rates were in the range of 93.74%-101.61%.This study demonstrated that SPB-1701 column has good tolerance to high temperatures and oxidation and high separation ability and is therefore more practical than polar capillary column.