Authentication of consumed lemon juice in Golestan province using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry

Industrial lemon juice may contain unauthorized additives that can lead to various diseases in society. As a result, it is highly important to use effective methods to identify the fake lemon juice. In this study, for the first time in our country, detection of cheating in industrial lemon juice in Golestan province is presented by analyzing organic acids, including citric acid, isocytic acid, malic acid, and also determining the ratio between citric acid and isocytic acid using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. The accuracy of the proposed method was confirmed by analyzing natural lemon juice samples. The limits of detection and quantification were 2 and 5, 0.02 and 0.05, 0.2 and 0.5 mg L-1 for citric acid, isocytic acid, malic acid, respectively. Industrial lemon juice samples were selected from commercially available brands, and fake samples were detected by comparison of the amounts of organic acids with the authorized values set by the European Standard. The results showed that the proposed method is very effective and sensitive in detecting cheating samples of industrial lemon juice.