Monitoring of five sulfonamide antibacterial residues in milk by in-tube solid-phase microextraction coupled to high-performance liquid chromatography

A simple, rapid, and sensitive method for the quantitative monitoring of five sulfonamide antibacterial residues in milk was developed by coupling in-tube solid-phase microextraction (SPME) to high-performance liquid chromatography with an ultraviolet detector. A poly(methacrylic acid-ethylene glycol dimethacrylate) monolithic capillary column was selected as the extraction medium for this on-line technique. To obtain optimum extraction efficiency, several parameters relating to in-tube SPME were investigated. By simple extraction with ethanol, dilution with phosphate buffer solution, and centrifugation, the sample solution then could be directly injected into the device for extraction. The calculated detection limits for sulfadiazine, sulfamethazine, sulfamethoxazole, sulfamonomethoxine sodium, and sulfacetamide sodium were 2.0, 2.8, 1.7, 2.5, and 22 ng/mL, respectively. The method was linear over the range of 20-5000 ng/mL (100-5000 ng/mL for sulfacetamide sodium) with a correlation coefficient R-2 value >0.9980. Excellent method reproducibility was found by intra- and interbatch precisions, yielding the relative standard deviations of <10.0 and <9.94%, respectively. The proposed method was proved to be robust in monitoring sulfadiazine, sulfamethazine, sulfamethoxazole, sulfamonomethoxine sodium, and sulfacetamide sodium residues in milk.