Quantitative determination of chromium picolinate in animal feeds by solid phase extraction and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

Chromium picolinate is one of the important Cr3+ resources and is widely used in animal production. A convenient, reliable and rapid liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method was developed and validated for the quantitative determination of chromium picolinate in animal feeds. Feed samples were extracted with acetonitrile and subsequently cleaned up by solid phase extraction cartridges Supelclean™ LC-18. Chromium picolinate was efficiently separated with a Waters ACQUITY UPLC® BEH C18 column, ionized with electrospray ion source in positive mode (ESI+), and quantitatively determined by tandem mass spectrometry in multiple reaction monitoring mode. Standard calibration curve of chromium picolinate in the concentration range from 0.5 to 1000 ng/mL was obtained with good linearity correlation coefficient (R2 = 0.9982). Average recoveries ranged from 95.37% ∼ 105.54%, as detected by spiking 0.02 ∼ 640 mg/kg of chromium picolinate in complete feed, concentrated feed and premix. Intra-day and inter-day coefficient of variation were 0.59% ∼ 6.67% and 2.36% ∼ 6.97%, respectively. The limits of quantitation were 0.02 mg/kg, 0.025 mg/kg, and 2 mg/kg for complete feed, concentrated feed, and premix, respectively. Actual sample analysis indicated that the developed method can be an effective tool to monitoring CrPic content in animal feed.