Biphenyl is used as an intermediate in the production of crop protection products, a solvent in pharmaceutical production, and as a component in the preservation of citrus fruits in many countries. Biphenyl is not authorized for use and also does not have standards or specifications as a food additive in Korea. National and imported food products are likely to contain biphenyl. Therefore, control and management of these products is required. In this study, a simple analytical method was developed and validated using HPLC to determine biphenyl in food. These methods are validated by assessing certain performance parameters: linearity, accuracy, precision, recovery, limit of detection (LOD), and limit of quantitation (LOQ). The calibration curve was obtained from 1.0 to 100.0 μg/mL with satisfactory relative standard deviations (RSD) of 0.999 in the representative sample (orange). In the measurement of quality control (QC) samples, accuracy was in the range of 95.8∼104.0% within normal values. The inter-day and inter-day precision values were less than 2.4% RSD in the measurement of QC samples. Recoveries of biphenyl from spiked orange samples ranged from 92.7 to 99.4% with RSD between 0.7 and 1.7% at levels of 10, 50, and 100 μg/mL. The LOD and LOQ were determined to be 0.04 and 0.13 μg/mL, respectively. These results show that the developed method is appropriate for biphenyl identification and can be used to examine the safety of citrus fruits and surface treatments containing biphenyl residues.

Keywords: biphenyl, method development, validation, preservative