Determination of melamine in Chinese-made processed food

Abstract

A method using liquid chromatograph coupled with tandem mass spectrometer (LC/MS/MS) was developed for the determination of melamine in processed food. After extraction with 50% acetonitrile and clean-up with PSA and SCX, the quantification limit of melamine in processed food was 0.5/μg/g. The recoveries and relative standard deviations were 113 to 115% and less than 5%, respectively. Therefore, we considered that the developed method offers high precision and sensitivity for the determination of melamine in processed food. When the method was applied to six suspected products, 0.8 to 37 /μg/g of melamine was detected from four milk-rich products.