High performance liquid chromatographic determination of aflatoxins in chilli, peanut and rice using silica based monolithic column

► The first report on the use of monolithic column in the HPLC determination of aflatoxins. ► Separation time was reduced to 3.7min compared to about 17min on a conventional column. ► Chilli and peanut samples were highly contaminated with aflatoxins B1 and G1. A simple and rapid high performance liquid chromatographic with fluorescence detection method for the determination of the aflatoxin B1, B2, G1 and G2 in peanuts, rice and chilli was developed. The sample was extracted using acetonitrile:water (90:10, v/v%) and then purified by using ISOLUTE® multimode solid phase extraction. After the pre-column derivatisation, the analytes were separated within 3.7min using Chromolith® performance RP-18e (100–4.6mm) monolithic column. To assess the possible effects of endogenous components in the food items, matrix-matched calibration was used for the quantification and validation. The recoveries of aflatoxins that were spiked into food samples were 86.38–104.5% and RSDs were