Development and validation of the method for determination of amitraz in honey using high-performance liquid chromatography with mass spectrometric detection

Method for determination of the insecticide amitraz residual content in honey has been developed and validated. The method is selective, express and easy-to-perform. The technique is based on the extraction of amitraz from alkalized aqueous solutions of honey with n-hexane and quantitative determination by high-performance liquid chromatography with mass spectrometric detection. Validation was performed using three types of honey at three levels of amitraz application 6, 120 and 220 µg/kg. The limit of quantification was 0.9 µg/kg, the calibration curves were linear in the concentration range from 2.5 to 125.0 ng/mL (the corresponding analyte content in honey is from 5.0 to 250.0 µg/kg), relative values of the standard deviations of repeatability and within-laboratory reproducibility did not exceed 3.4 and 5.9 %, respectively, the bias values varied from –8.2 to 5.6 %, the expanded uncertainty estimates of the results ranged from 12 to 16 % (P = 0.95). Instrumental limit of quantification, overall efficiency of the process and robustness were also evaluated during the validation process.