Simultaneous enrichment/determination of six sulfonamides in animal husbandry products and environmental waters by pressure-assisted electrokinetic injection coupled with capillary zone electrophoresis

Pressure-assisted electrokinetic injection (PAEKI) as the online method was developed for the simultaneous enrichment of six sulfonamides (SAs), including sulfamethazine (SMZ), sulfamerazine (SMR), sulfamonomethoxine (SMM), sulfadizine (SDZ), sulfamethoxazole (SMX) and sulfacetamide (SFA) in different animal husbandry products and environmental waters samples, followed by capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) determination. Various parameters affecting the separation performance of CZE and the enrichment efficiency of PAEKI were optimized in detail. Under optimal conditions, the six SAs were completely separated within 8.5 min, and the enrichment factors for SMZ, SMR, SMM, SDZ, SMX and SFA were 39, 47, 53, 50, 54 and 62 folds, respectively, compared with the direct CZE. The limits of detection (LOD) ranged from 0.0018–0.0163 μg/mL, 0.0083–0.0638 μg/mL and 0.0052–0.0478 μg/mL in milk, pork and egg samples, respectively, as well as limits of quantification (LOQ) within 0.0061–0.0503 μg/mL, 0.0253–0.1826 μg/mL and 0.0164–0.1475 μg/mL, respectively. Tap water, lake water and seawater were also examined for investigation of applicability of the proposed method. Satisfactory recoveries in the range of 89–113 % were obtained with the three spiked food samples, and the relative standard deviations were from 1.6 to 7.3%. Simple and effective online enrichment method provides a promising perspective for CZE measurements of SAs in complex matrices with high accuracy, sensitivity and rapidity.