Determination of chloramphenicol, thiamphenicol and florfenicol in milk and honey using modified QuEChERS extraction coupled with polymeric monolith-based capillary liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry.

A poly(lauryl methacrylate-co-methacrylic acid-co-ethylene glycol dimethacrylate) [LMA-MAA-EDMA] monolithic column was used to simultaneously determine amphenicol antibiotics (chloramphenicol/CAP, thiamphenicol/TAP, and florfenicol/FF) in milk and honey samples by capillary liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). QuEChERS (quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe) method was optimized for sample pretreatment. Good linearity (0.1-15 ng g(-1)) and extraction recoveries (95.8-100.2% and 95.6-99.3% for milk and honey samples, respectively; n=3) with minor matrix effect (≦ 5% ion suppression) were obtained. Limits of detection were estimated at 0.02-0.045 ng g(-1). Good intra-day/inter-day precision (0.2-9.1%/0.3-8.7%) and accuracy (90.5-110.0%/93.4-109.3%) were achieved. With more than 200 analyses of real samples, no noticeable carry-over and deterioration of separation efficiency were observed using the monolithic column. The applicability of the developed QuEChERS-capillary LC-MS/MS method was demonstrated by determining the occurrence of CAP, TAP, and FF in various milk and honey samples.