Simultaneous determination of amantadine, rimantadine and memantine in chicken muscle using multi-walled carbon nanotubes as a reversed-dispersive solid phase extraction sorbent

• Isomers (rimantadine and memantine) were successfully separated using a C18 column.
• An LC–MS/MS method was developed for three adamantane drugs using dSPE.
• MWCNTs were efficiently used for enrichment and clean-up.
• The whole method was fast, reliable, convenient and sensitive.

A modified quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe (QuEChERS) method using multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) as a reversed-dispersive solid phase extraction (r-dSPE) material combined with ultra-high liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC–MS/MS) was developed for the simultaneous determination of amantadine, rimantadine and memantine in chicken muscle. The satisfactory separation of isomers (rimantadine and memantine) was obtained on an Acquity BEH C18 column (2.1 mm × 100 mm, 1.7 μm) after optimization of mobile phase composition, column temperature and flow rate. The method involved an acetonitrile-based sample preparation and a dSPE clean-up procedure with MWCNTs material. Variations in the type and amount of MWCNTs, the pH value of the extract, the extraction time for MWCNTs, and the type of eluent were used to determine the optimal parameters for increasing the sample throughput and the sensitivity. The samples were quantified using amantadine-D15, rimantadine-D4 and memantine-D6 as the internal standards. Under the optimized conditions, recoveries of 96.8–104.6% and the values of coefficient of variation (CV) of 3.8–6.4% were obtained for the three drugs in chicken muscle at three spiked levels (0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 μg/kg), and the decision limits (CCα) and detection capabilities (CCβ) were 0.15–0.20 μg/kg and 0.20–0.25 μg/kg, respectively. Positive results were obtained from local supermarket using this method, and the concentrations obtained from the newly developed method compared well to the previously reported method.