Multi-mycotoxins analysis in liquid milk by UHPLC-Q-Exactive HRMS after magnetic solid-phase extraction based on PEGylated multi-walled carbon nanotubes

A simple and rapid magnetic solid-phase extraction (MSPE) method using PEGylated multi-walled carbon nanotubes magnetic nanoparticles (PEG-MWCNTs-MNP) as absorbents is proposed for isolation and enrichment of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), aflatoxin B2 (AFB2), aflatoxin G1 (AFG1), aflatoxin G2 (AFG2), aflatoxin M1 (AFM1), aflatoxin M2 (AFM2), ochratoxin A (OTA), zearalenone (ZEA), zearalanone (ZAN), α-zeralanol (α-ZAL), β-zeralanol (β-ZAL), α-zeralenol (α-ZOL), and β-zeralenol (β-ZOL) from liquid milk. Combined with ultra-high performance liquid chromatography Q-Exactive high resolution mass spectrometry, simultaneous qualification of these mycotoxins was achieved with sensitivity and specificity. The proposed method showed a good linearity (R2 ≥ 0.995), high sensitivity (limit of detection in the range of 0.005–0.050 μg/kg and limit of quantification in the range of 0.015–0.150 μg/kg), adequate recovery (81.8–106.4%), and good repeatability (intra-day precision in the range of 2.1–8.5% and inter-day precision in the range of 3.9–11.7%). It has been successfully applied to the determination of 13 mycotoxins in real liquid milk samples. •PEG-MWCNTs-MNP were firstly used to extract mycotoxins from liquid milk;•The extracted mycotoxins were quantified with UHPLC-Q-Exactive HRMS;•A fast method was developed by combining the above two powerful tools to analyze multi-mycotoxins in liquid milk samples.