Simultaneous voltammetric analysis of tetracycline antibiotics in foods

The new simple, cost effective and well performing differential pulse stripping voltammetry method for the simultaneous determination of antibiotics – oxytetracycline, tetracycline and chlorotetracycline was researched and developed. It depends on the reduction of these compounds at a hanging mercury drop electrode. The samples were extracted from (i) spiked animal feed, and (ii) fresh fish muscle dosed with the drugs. The voltammograms from the drug mixture produced complex, overlapping profiles, and chemometrics methods were applied for calibration modelling. The analytical linear ranges were within 0.02–0.18 μg mL−1 and the corresponding LODs were 3–5 μg L−1 for the three analytes. These values compare well with those from the HPLC and fluorescence methods in the literature. The % relative prediction errors from the verification trials were between 4% and 9% with % Recoveries being 103–107. Also, the % Recoveries of the antibiotics from animal feeds as measured by the new method were comparable with those from the HPLC analysis (85%), i.e. the method is highly competitive, especially as a screening approach.