Trace and qualitative evaluation of residual piperazine in chicken muscle by HPLC-MS/MS employing automatic ASE coupled to solid-phase preconcentration

This paper described a clipping, reliable, and hypersensitive protocol for the trace measurement of piperazine residues in chicken muscle by high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS).The sample matrices were defatted with n-hexane and extracted with 2% trichloroacetic acid/acetonitrile using accelerated solvent extraction (ASE) at 80 C and 1500 psi.Before using the HPLC system for separation, the samples were purified utilizing solid-phase extraction (SPE) and filtered with a 0.22-m syringe.The qualitative and quantitative analyses applied electrospray ionization positive ion (ESI+) mode and multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode combined with an external standard method.Under optimized sample pretreatment measures and analytical conditions, the test results exhibited good linearity over the added concentration range (1-200 g/kg).When the target was added at concentrations of 50, 100, and 200 g/kg, the recoveries were 82.22%-88.63%,and the relative standard deviations (RSDs) were 1.56%-4.55%.The limit of detection (LOD) and the limit of quantification (LOQ) were 0.3 g/kg and 1.0 g/kg, respectively.This method met the requirements of the EU and was successfully applied for the determination of piperazine residues in chicken muscle samples.