[Determination of melamine in Chinese-made processed food]

A method using liquid chromatograph coupled with tandem mass spectrometer (LC/MS/MS) was developed for the determination of melamine in processed food. After extraction with 50% acetonitrile and clean-up with PSA and SCX, the quantification limit of melamine in processed food was 0.5 microg/g. The recoveries and relative standard deviations were 113 to 115% and less than 5%, respectively. Therefore, we considered that the developed method offers high precision and sensitivity for the determination of melamine in processed food. When the method was applied to six suspected products, 0.8 to 37 microg/g of melamine was detected from four milk-rich products.