• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.670-699
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• 2016

In this study, 16 antibiotics were selected from among the top 30 veterinary antibiotics sold in South Korea in 2014, as well as from among the pharmaceuticals targeted by EPA method 1694, in order to review analytical methods for the detection of trace levels of antibiotics in environmental samples: surface water, soils, animal origin foods, and manures. LC-MS/MS was heavily used. In the chromatography for the detection of the selected antibiotics, the $C_{18}$ column was mostly used at the temperature of $30{\sim}40^{\circ}C$. Water and methanol/acetonitrile were commonly chosen as a nonpolar and a polar mobile phase, respectively. Gradient elution was applied to separate multiclass antibiotics. Volatile additives, such as formic acid, acetic acid, and ammonium acetate were mixed with the mobile phase to improve the ionization efficiency of analytes and the sensitivity in MS detection. Electrospray ionization (ESI) was widely used in the LC-MS/MS and positive ionization was preferred to determine the selected antibiotics. A protonated $[M+H]^+$ molecule was selected as a precursor ion, and its two transitions were analyzed, one for quantitative measurement and the other for confirmation. This study reviewed linearity of the calibration curve, recovery, repeatability, method detection limits (MDLs), and method quantification limits (MQLs) for each target compound used to validate the developed analytical methods.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.649-669
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• 2016

This study explored the analytical conditions for 21 veterinary antibiotics which have been popularly sold in South Korea in 2014 but have not yet been targeted in EPA method 1694. Most of the selected antibiotics were separated by a reverse-phase C18 column with a combination of (buffered) water and organic polar solvent, which was commonly methanol and acetonitrile in the gradient elution mode. Volatile additives such as formic acid, ammonium acetate and ammonium formate were usually added to the mobile phases to minimize asymmetrical and tailing of antibiotics' peaks and to increase their ionization in mass spectrometry. The analytical methods of aminoglycoside antibiotics were distinct from those of the other antibiotics in terms of adoption of ion-pair chromatography (IPC) and hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) capable of retaining and separating extremely polar compounds due to their hydrophilicity. Trifluoroacetic acid or heptafluorobutyric acid was frequently added to the mobile phase as an ion-pair reagent for the IPC. Tandem mass spectrometry was numerously applied to the detection of antibiotics using positive electrospray ionization (ESI) and the selected reaction monitoring (SRM) mode. All reviewed analytical methods had been/were validated by evaluating recovery, limits of detection and quantification, decision limit or detection capability of the methods.