Determination of β-agonists in Porcine Meats by Ion-Pair Extraction and High Performance Liquid Chromatography

Ion-paired extraction was employed for the determination of salbutamol, clenbuterol, and ractopamine. Tetrabutylammonium bromide was used as the ion-pairing agent and water-acetonitrile was the extraction solvent. The concentration and pH of the buffer, salt addition, concentration of tetrabutylammonium bromide, and type and volume of extraction solvent were optimized. No centrifugation step was required. Matrix interferences from real samples were eliminated using matrix-matched calibration. Under the optimum conditions, a linear calibration relationship was present from 0.0025 to 3 mu gmL(-1) with an enrichment factor of more than 25. This method was combined with high-performance liquid chromatography for the determination of -agonists in porcine meats with low limits of detection, high recovery, and rapid analysis.