Focused Microwave‐Assisted Extraction and HPLC with Electrochemical Detection to Determine Heterocyclic Amines in Meat Extracts

Abstract

A method for the determination of 11 heterocyclic amines (HAs) in meat extracts by high performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection is proposed. The chromatographic method is optimized to obtain both polar and less polar amines in the same chromatographic run, which is a difficult task when using electrochemical detection. The extraction of the meat extracts is carried out using a focused microwave system, a technique applied for first‐time in the extraction of these analytes. The microwave extraction process takes only 5 minutes, an improvement on the extraction times for methods commonly applied to heterocyclic amines in food samples. This screening method allows us to determine HAs in meat extracts with average recoveries of 81.2%, 76.4%, 66.7%, 60.3%, and 63.8%, for granulated meat extract, non‐granulated meat extract, chicken extract, and soup cubes (brands A and B), respectively. The proposed method has an intermediate precision ranging from 6.1 to 12.8%, and detection limits between 0.16 and 2.68 ng.

Keywords:

• Heterocyclic amines
• High performance liquid chromatography
• Electrochemical detection
• Focused microwave‐assisted extraction
• Meat extracts

Acknowledgments

A. Martín‐Calero would like to thank Caja Canarias for a predoctoral fellowship. V. Pino would like to acknowledge the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia for the Juan de la Cierva contract with University of La Laguna. This work was supported by the projects AGL‐2002–02149 financed by Dirección General de Investigación del Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología (Spain), and PI2003/149 financed by Gobierno Autónomo de Canarias (Spain).