Determination of 24 Benzimidazoles in meat and meat products by modified QuEChERS coupled with UPLC-MS/MS

In this study, an effective method for the simultaneous determination of 24 Benzimidazoles in meat and meat products based on a modified QuEChERS sample preparation technique coupled with ultra-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry was established. Then, BZDs in meat and meat products were extracted by 0.1 % ammonium hydroxide in acetonitrile, followed by cleanup with 0.1 g C18 and 0.3 g MgSO4, ionized in electrospray positive ionization source mode, and scanned for determination of the precursor ion and product ion by mass spectrometry in multiple reaction monitoring mode. The results showed that 24 BZDs had good linearity in the range of 0.2–100 μg/kg with correlation coefficients >0.999, and the limits of detection ranged from 0.001 to 0.244 µg/kg and the limits of quantification were between 0.002 and 0.738 µg/kg. The average recoveries of BZDs at three different spike levels of 2, 20, and 50 µg/kg were 74.6 % −113.9 %, with intra-day and inter-day relative standard deviations less than 9.86 % and 11.03 %, respectively. This method has been successfully applied to the determination of BZDs in real samples, providing a powerful tool for the monitoring of BZDs residues in animal-derived foods. [Display omitted] •The traditional QuEChERS has been modified and optimized for the effective pretreatment of meat and meat products.•A high-throughput method for the simultaneous detection of 24 BZDs in meat and meat products has been developed.•Lower LODs, satisfactory recoveries, good precision and linearity are obtained.