Magnetic solid phase extraction based on phenyl silica adsorbent for the determination of tetracyclines in milk samples by capillary electrophoresis.

A magnetic solid phase extraction method coupled to capillary electrophoresis is proposed for the determination of tetracycline, oxytetracycline, chlortetracycline and doxycycline in milk samples. Five different magnetic phenyl silica adsorbents covered with magnetite were synthesized by varying the molar ratio of phenyltrimethylsilane and tetramethylorthosilicate; these adsorbents were evaluated in terms of their pH and degree of hydrophobicity for tetracycline retention. The optimal, selected combination of conditions was a pH of 10.0 and a magnetic sorbent ratio of 4:1; under these conditions, the retention capacity ranged from 99.7% to 101.2% for the four tetracyclines analyzed. The elution conditions and initial sample volume of the proposed extraction method were also optimized, and the best results were obtained with 1×10(-3) M acetic acid in methanol as eluent and a 200 ml of sample volume. Under optimal conditions, average recoveries ranged from 94.2% to 99.8% and the limits of detection ranged from 2 to 9 μg l(-1) for the four tetracyclines. After the proposed method was optimized and validated, 25 milk samples of different brands were analyzed, oxytetracycline residues were detected in five samples, in concentrations ranging from 98 to 213 μg l(-1). Subsequent analysis of positive samples by SPE-CE and magnetic solid phase extraction-HPLC revealed than no significant differences were found from results obtained by the proposed methodology. Thus, the developed magnetic extraction is a robust pre-concentration technique that can be coupled to other analytical methods for the quantitative determination of tetracyclines.