Incorporation of flow injection analysis with dual-wavelength overlapping resonance Rayleigh scattering for rapid determination of malachite green and its metabolite in fish

•A rapid assay of MG was performed.•FIA and DWO–RRS was employed.•The detection limit (1.5 ng/mL) was comparable to several reported methods.•The RRS enhancing mechanisms were proposed.

A flow injection analysis (FIA) system combined with dual-wavelength overlapping resonance Rayleigh scattering (DWO–RRS) has been established and validated for rapid determination of malachite green (MG) and its metabolite in fish samples. Under experimental condition, MG would react with Erythrosin (Ery) to form ion-association complexes, resulting in the occurrence of two RRS peaks and a dramatic enhancement of RRS intensity. The maximum RRS peaks were located at 286 nm and 337 nm. It is noted that the increments of both of these two peaks were proportional to the concentration of MG. The detection limit of DWO–RRS was 1.5 ng/mL, which was comparable to several reported methods. Moreover, the results of real sample analysis exhibited an acceptable recovery between 97.5% and 103.6%, indicating that the method had good reproducibility.

Graphical abstractA dual-wavelength overlapping resonance Rayleigh scattering (DWO–RRS) coupled with flow injection analysis (FIA) has been established and validated for rapid determination of malachite green (MG) and its metabolite in fish samples.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide