Determination of diazepam in aquatic products by ultra performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry with pass-through solid phase extraction

Abstract

A method was developed for the determination of diazepam in aquatic products by pass-through solid phase extraction-ultra performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS). The analyte was extracted with acetonitrile directly and purified on a Prime HLB solid phase extraction column (60 mg/3 mL). The separation was performed on an Acquity UPLC BEH C18 column (100 mm×2.1 mm, 1.7 μm)using methanol-0.1% (v/v) formic acid aqueous solution as the mobile phase in gradient elution mode. Qualitative analysis was performed in the multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. The analyte was quantified by matrix-matched external standard curves. The results showed good linear relationship in the range of 0.1-10 ng/mL, and the correlation coefficient (r2) was greater than 0.99. The spiked recoveries of diazepam were 88.2%-101.1% at the spiked levels of 1.5, 3.0 and 15.0 μg/kg, and both the intra-and inter-day precisions were less than 10%. The developed method is simple, rapid and accurate, and it can meet the requirements for diazepam determination in aquatic product samples.