Simultaneous determination of nitroimidazole residues in honey samples by high-performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection.

A rapid and sensitive high-performance liquid chromatography (LC) method was developed for the simultaneous determination of metronidazole (MNZ), dimetridazole (DMZ), ronidazole (RNZ), tinidazole (TNZ), and 2-hydroxymethyl-1-methyl-5-nitroimidazole (HMMNI) in honey. After extraction with ethyl acetate and evaporation, the residue containing the nitroimidazoles was dissolved in ethyl acetate-hexane and subjected to solid-phase extraction cleanup by amine extraction columns. The effluent was evaporated to dryness, and residues were dissolved and determined by LC with an ultraviolet detector set at 315 nm. The limits of detection were 1.0-2.0 ng/g for MNZ, DMZ, RNZ, TNZ, and HMMNI in honey. Average recoveries ranged from 71.5-101.4% in honey fortified at 10, 20, 50, and 100 ng/g. The method was validated for the analysis of real honey samples.