Determination of carbendazim residues in Procambarus clarkii by high performance liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry

Abstract

A novel method based on high performance liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) was established for the determination of carbendazim in Procambarus clarkii. The sample was extracted by ethyl acetate under alkaline conditions and centrifuged. The supernatant was concentrated by rotary evaporation, redissolved, and then enriched and purified on a mixed-mode cation exchange solid phase extraction column (MCX). A C18 column was used with acetonitrile and water as mobile phases in a gradient elution. Ionization was performed using an electrospray positive ion source (ESI+), and detection was achieved by MS/MS in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. The linearity for carbendazim was good in the range of 0.5-50.0 μg/L; the linear equation was y=0.19988x+0.01842; and the correlation coefficient (r2) was 0.9985. The limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) were 0.25 μg/kg and 0.50 μg/kg, respectively. At spiked levels of 0.5, 1.0, 5.0, and 50.0 μg/kg, the recoveries ranged from 83.9% to 105.5%, and the relative standard deviation ranged from 1.1% to 3.2%. This method is simple and effective for the determination of carbendazim residues in P. clarkii.