Mesoporous alumina as a solid phase extraction adsorbent for the determination of abamectin and ivermectin in vegetables by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

Abstract

We report the synthesis of mesoporous alumina by a template method and its applications as a new solid phase extraction adsorbent with abamectin and ivermectin as the target analytes by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Chromatographic separation was conducted on a C₁₈ column using a gradient mobile phase consisting of methanol (solvent A) and 0.2% formic acid in a 5 mmol L⁻¹ ammonium acetate buffer (solvent B) at a flow rate of 0.3 mL min⁻¹. The linearity of the calibration curves was excellent and yielded correlation coefficients (r² = 0.9990–0.9999) in a range of 0.02–0.50 mg L⁻¹. Samples were spiked with known quantities of the analytes at three different concentration levels (0.05, 0.10 and 0.20 mg L⁻¹), and the recoveries were in the range of 87.3–104.5% with the relative standard deviation (RSD) values ranging between 0.53% and 5.8%. The limits of detections and limits of quantization were 0.16 ng g⁻¹ and 0.53 ng g⁻¹, respectively. These results indicated that mesoporous alumina has enormous potential as a novel solid phase extraction adsorbent material in the food security field.