Simultaneous Determination of Phenobarbital, Pentobarbital, Amobarbital and Secobarbital in Raw Milk via Liquid Chromatography with Electron Spray Ionization Tandem Mass Spectrometry

A rapid, sensitive and specific liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method was developed for the simultaneous determination of four barbiturates (phenobarbital, pentobarbital, amobarbital and secobarbital) in raw milk. The barbiturates were extracted using liquid-liquid extraction, ultrasonication and centrifugation, and purified on an SPE column. Analytes were separated by HPLC on a CSH C18 column eluted using an acetonitrile-water system with a linear gradient dilution programme, and detected by MS/MS. The recoveries of the barbiturates were 85.0-113.5%, and the intra- and inter-assay RSDs were less than 9.8% and 7.3%, respectively. The limit of detection was 5 ng/mL for all four of the barbiturates. The analytical method exhibited good linearity from 10 to 1000 ng/mL; the correlation coefficient (r(2)) was greater than 0.9950 for each barbiturate. This method was also applied to the determination of barbiturates in real milk samples and was found to be suitable for the determination of veterinary drug residues in raw milk.