Analysis of imidocarb in livestock and seafood products using LC-MS/MS

A simple method using high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was investigated for the detection of the antiprotozoal drug imidocarb in 10 livestock and seafood products. Liquid chromatographic separation employed a TSK VMpak-25 column with ammonium acetate-acetonitrile as a mobile phase. Mass spectral acquisition was performed in the ESI positive-ion mode. Imidocarb was extracted from all samples using liquid extraction with acetonitrile under basic conditions. For samples other than honey, fat-soluble impurities were removed by acetonitrile-hexane partitioning. The salting-out technique was used for extraction from honey in order to improve the separation of the organic solvent and water added to the honey sample. The limit of quantitation was 0.005 µg/g (expressed as concentration in samples). The recoveries from all samples were 76-109%, and the repeatability and reproducibility were also satisfactory.