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Ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-electrospray tandem mass spectrometry for the analysis of antibiotic residues in environmental waters

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Abstract

An optimized solid-phase extraction (SPE) and ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-electrospray tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) method was developed for the effective analysis of 35 antibiotics including sulfonamides (SAs), quinolones (QLs), tetracyclines (TCs), macrolides (MALs), lincomycin (LIN), and chloramphenicol (CAP). The addition of 0.1 % formic acid to the mobile phase was favorable for the formation of [M + H]+ and the enhancement in the detection signals, but using ammonium formate decreased [M + H]+ with a corresponding reduction in the response of CAP. The optimal pH range for the SPE was 4.5 ∼ 5.0 with 6 mL aqueous ammonia/methanol (5/95, v/v) as the optimized eluent. An internal standard (IS) was selected for each type of analytes based on similarities in classification and retention time. The detection was completed in less than 10 min and was excellent with method detection limits (MDL) of 0.29 ∼ 4.03 ng/L. The recoveries of the antibiotics in samples from ultrapure water and groundwater were 67.13 ∼ 93.00 % and 68.91 ∼ 92.67 %, respectively. The antibiotics in samples collected from wastewater, surface water, and groundwater were also effectively detected. This newly developed method has the advantages of short detection times, small sample consumption, excellent reproducibility, and high sensitivity. This provides a reliable and promising technique for the simultaneous detection and monitoring of various residual antibiotics in aqueous environmental samples.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (41172226), the Fundamental Research Fund for the Central Universities (No.2652014069), the Special Fund for Cooperation Program from Beijing, and the Special Fund for Public Interest Research support by the Ministry of environmental protection (201309001-3). We also would like to thank Dr. Qinghe Zhang and Dr. Xiangyu Guan for their kindly help during the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beijing Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering, School of Water Resources and Environment, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, 100083, People’s Republic of China

    Qiang Xue, Yanjie Qi & Fei Liu

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  1. Qiang Xue
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  2. Yanjie Qi
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  3. Fei Liu
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Correspondence to Fei Liu.

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Xue, Q., Qi, Y. & Liu, F. Ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-electrospray tandem mass spectrometry for the analysis of antibiotic residues in environmental waters. Environ Sci Pollut Res 22, 16857–16867 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-015-4900-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-015-4900-1

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