Objective: To develop a method for simultaneous determination of 5 nitroimidazole antibiotics and 17 sulfonamides antibiotics in disinfection products by ultra-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry(UPLC-MS/MS).
Methods: Samples were spiked with isotope internal standard, and then extracted by 2% formic acid solution and acetonitrile with ultrasonic, followed by MCX column to remove matrix interference and for enrichment. The supernatants were diluted with 2% formic acid solution before loading on the columns, then washed with 2% formic acid solution and methanol respectively, eluted with 5% ammonium methanol. The separation was performed on a CORTECS~(TM) UPLC C_(18)(100 mm×2. 1 mm, 1. 6 μm) column by using 0. 1% formic acid solution and 0. 1% formic acid acetonitrile as mobile phase with gradient elution. The antibiotics were analyzed by UPLC-MS/MS.
Results: The linear ranges of 22 antibiotics were 0. 05-5. 0 ng/mL and the correlation coefficients were greater than 0. 999. The limits of detection(LODs) were 0. 03-0. 15 μg/kg and the recoveries were 84. 3%-121. 2% with the relative standard deviations were 1. 13%-8. 43%(n=6). The method was successfully used to detect the content of antibiotics in 20 disinfection products, 45% of samples had been detected positively.
Conclusion: This method is simple, sensitive, selective and accurate, and could be applied for simultaneous detection of antibiotics in disinfection products.
Keywords: antibiotics; disinfection products; ultra-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry.