Artificial sweeteners as emerging pollutants in the environment: analytical methodologies and environmental impact

Abstract

The primary aim of this review is to extensively demonstrate the available analytical methodologies for the environmental determination of all eight popular artificial sweeteners: sucralose, acesulfame, saccharin, cyclamate, alitame, aspartame, neotame, and neohesperidin dihydrochalcone. Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry methods play a key role in their sensitive and reliable determination in environmental matrices. In addition, all peer reviewed literature concerning their environmental impact (distribution and ecotoxicology) is presented. Moreover, the role of sucralose, acesulfame, saccharin and cyclamate as pollution markers is also demonstrated. Future prospects in terms of method developments on artificial sweeteners in environmental samples are suggested and discussed.