Colorimetric detection of the β-agonist ractopamine in animal feed, tissue and urine samples using gold-silver alloy nanoparticles modified with sulfanilic acid.

A highly sensitive, selective and simple method was proposed for colorimetric detection of ractopamine on the basis of the interaction between ractopamine and sulfanilic acid-modified gold-silver alloy nanoparticles (AuAgNPs). The AuAgNPs were prepared by the reduction of HAuCl4 and AgNO3 with sodium citrate in aqueous medium and further modified by sulfanilic acid. The interaction of ractopamine with sulfanilic acid induced rapid aggregation of sulfanilic acid-modified AuAgNPs along with an optical colour change, leading to precise quantification which could be detected by absorptiometry. Under the optimum conditions, the absorbance ratio (A600/A435) of sulfanilic acid-modified AuAgNPs exhibited a linear relationship with the concentration of ractopamine in the range of 4.5-31.6 ng/mL. The detection limit of ractopamine was 1.5 ng/mL. The established novel colorimetric detection method showed high selectivity towards ractopamine. The method was successfully applied to detect ractopamine in spiked pork, swine feed and swine urine samples with excellent recoveries from 94.4% to 112.5%. These results demonstrated that the proposed new method has a good potential for practical applications.