Determination of Biogenic Amines in Beers and Their Raw Materials by Ion-Pair Liquid Chromatography with Postcolumn Derivatization

Abstract

A liquid chromatographic method is described for the determination in one run of the following 10 biogenic amines in beers: histamine, tyramine, serotonin, (β-phenylethylamine, tryptamine, cadaverine, putrescine, agmatine, spermine, and spermidine. The method is based on ion-pair chromatographic partition on a reversed-phase column and involves a postcolumn reaction with o-phthalaldehyde (OPT) to form fluorescent derivatives with amines. Treatment of beer samples before injection requires only a filtration through a 0.45 μm filter. It is necessary to obtain a perchloric extract for analysis of raw materials (malt and hops). The method was tested for lack of interference from amino acids and other amines. Linearity, precision, recovery, and sensitivity were satisfactory. Detection limits ranged from 0.30 to 0.40 mg/L, and determination limits ranged from 0.40 to 0.50 mg/L, except for serotonin and spermine, which were slightly higher. The simple preparation of sample and the automatic accomplishment of derivatization steps considerably reduce analysis time and effort.