Highly selective solid-phase extraction sorbents for chloramphenicol determination in food and urine by ion mobility spectrometry

Different highly selective sorbents have been evaluated for the treatment of food and biological samples to determine chloramphenicol residues by ion mobility spectrometry (IMS). Combination of a selective solid-phase extraction (SPE) and dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction allowed a highly sensitive determination of chloramphenicol in water, milk, honey, and urine samples. The performance of selective SPE supports such as immunoaffinity chromatography (IAC) and molecular imprinted polymers (MIP) have been compared in terms of selectivity, sensitivity, trueness, precision, and reusability. Quantitative recoveries were obtained for chloramphenicol residues, ranging from 91 to 123 % for water, from 99 to 120 % for skimmed milk, and from 95 to 124 % for urine using IAC-IMS and MIP-IMS methods. Quantitative recoveries (from 88 to 104 %) were also achieved for honey samples using IAC-IMS, but low recoveries were obtained using MIP-IMS. The limit of quantification was set at 0.1 mu g L-1 which is lower than the minimum required performance limit established by the EU. The proposed methodology is a simple and cost affordable alternative to chromatography methods for the highly sensitive and selective analysis of chloramphenicol residues in food and urine.