Solid phase extraction of biogenic amines from wine before chromatographic analysis of their AQC derivatives

This paper describes a method for determining the most important biogenic amines in wines. It uses reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) with gradient elution and fluorimetric detection, performed on the amines after automatic precolumn derivatization with 6-aminoquinolyl-n-hydroxysuccinimidyl carbamate (AQC). Solid phase extraction (SPE) with strong cation exchanger (SCX) cartridges was used prior to derivatization to improve the selectivity and to reduce the detection limits (LOD) of the method. The overall method was used to determine the aforementioned amines in red wines from the Tarragona region.