3.2. Caffeine determination
3.2.1. SPE method
Several eluants were tested for caffeine SPE (ethyl acetate, acetone, methanol) but the highest extraction efficiency was obtained with methanol, as had already been reported by Buerge et al. (2003). The SPE method (Fig. 1b) showed linearity for recovery rates up to 75mg/L of caffeine. In this range, recovery rates for caffeine were between 96% and 100% (mean ¼ 98.1, RSD ¼ 2.5%).
Chromatographic and method calibration parameters for caffeine determination are shown in Table 7.