Analysis of Clenbuterol in Porcine Meat Utilizing an Exact-Matching Double IDMS: Interlaboratory Comparison Result: APMP.QM-S6 Clenbuterol in Porcine Meat

Abstract

       Clenbuterol is a type of β-agonist which has been used as an illegal growth promoter in meat production. The presence of clenbuterol in meat for human consumption is a health risk for consumers and is therefore forbidden in many countries. The Organic Analysis Laboratory of the National Institute of Metrology, Thailand (NIMT) participated in the interlaboratory comparison, APMP.QM-S6: Clenbuterol in porcine meat. The measurement method used was the exact-matching double isotope dilution mass spectrometry (IDMS) technique. This measurement procedure involved alkaline hydrolysis, acid precipitation, defattening, liquid-liquid extraction, solid phase extraction (SPE) clean-up and analysis of sample extracts by high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) operating in positive ion multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. The purity of clenbuterol standard obtained from the in-house purity assessment utilized metrological traceability of measurement results. The mass fraction of clenbuterol in APMP.QM-S6 sample reported by NIMT was 5.0 μg/kg with 5.0% relative expanded uncertainty (at the 95 % confidence interval) which was in agreement with results from other metrology institutes. The Supplementary Comparison Reference Value (SCRV) was 5.216 μg/kg ± 0.131 μg/kg.