[Determination of melamine and ammeline in eggs and meat using hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography]

A hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatographic (HILIC) method for the determination of melamine and its degradation product ammeline in eggs and meat has been developed. The separation was carried out on a ZIC-HILIC column with 3 mmol/L NH4H2PO4 (pH 6.9)-acetonitrile (20: 80, v/v) as mobile phase at the flow rate of 0.8 mL/min, and detected at 220 nm. Compared with the reversed-phase liquid chromatography, this method can avoid the use of ion pair reagents and thus simplify the composition of mobile phase. Under the above chromatographic conditions, melamine and ammeline had good peak shapes and moderate retention times. Good separation between these compounds and the substances that were naturally contained in the samples can be achieved. For the sample preparation, the analytes were first extracted with 0.1% phosphoric acid due to the basicity of melamine and ammeline. Then, metaphosphoric acid and acetonitrile were used to remove proteins and saccharides by precipitation. After the filtration and removal of acetonitrile by rotary evaporation under vacuum, the filtrate was cleaned-up by solid-phase extraction (SPE) technique in which a cation exchange column was used. The SPE column was activated by using methanol and 0.1% phosphoric acid. A solution of 5% ammonia methanol was chosen as eluent. The residues obtained from the eluant by evaporating the solvent were resolved in the mobile phase. It was found that there was a good linear relationship between concentration and detector response within the range of 0.4-40 mg/L. The limits of detection were 2 mg/kg for both melamine and ammeline. The average recoveries were between 80% and 105% in the spiked range of 2-10 mg/kg. The relative standard deviations were not more than 10%. The solutions of melamine and ammeline were stable in a month. The established method can be used in practice to determine melamine and ammeline simultaneously in egg and meat samples.