Screening method for the determination of selected tetracyclines in water by liquid chromatography with diode array detector

A chromatographic procedure for determination of oxytetracycline (OXT), tetracycline (TC), chlorotetracycline (CTC), and doxycycline (DC) in water samples was developed and was applied for the analysis of water samples collected from poultry and pig farms and environmental water samples. Samples were acidified with trifluoroacetetic acid to pH 3 and further purified by solid phase extraction using Oasis HLB cartridges. The samples were dried up and redissolved in the mixture of oxalic acid and methanol. Separation was performed on reserved phase column (Phenomenex column C18 , 250 mm × 4.6 mm, 5 μm) by multistep gradient elution, and detection was carried out at 360 nm for OTC and TC, 370 nm for CTC, and 350 nm for DC. The tetracyclines were eluted with the mobile phase of 0.05 M oxalic acid (pH 2.5), acetonitrile, and methanol. This method provided average recoveries of 83.53% to 108.59%, with coefficient of variations (CVs) of 2.41% to 8.64% in the range of 10 to 1000 μg/L OTC, TC, CTC, and DC in water. The linearity for the tetracyclines was determined by HPLC-DAD in the range 10 to 1000 μg/L, with the correlation coefficient (R) > 0.99. The LOD and LOQ for the tetracyclines in water samples ranged from 1.51 to 4.00 and 2.51 to 5.93 μg/L, respectively.