Dissociation mechanisms-based UHPLC Q-Orbitrap strategy for screening of cephalosporins and metabolites in shrimp.

A screening method was explored for simultaneous analysis of 43 cephalosporins residues and their metabolites from four generations in shrimp utilizing a novel fully untargeted data acquisition method. Four generations of cephalosporins residues and their metabolites are extracted with online extraction simultaneously. Ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography coupled to quadrupole-orbitrap high resolution mass spectrometry was used for to determine cephalosporins and their metabolites in ten shrimp species. Precision in terms of relative standard deviation (RSD) was under 6.3% for all compounds, and the extraction recoveries ranged from 85% to 108%. The detection capabilities ranged from 0.011 to 0.223 mg kg. The fully untargeted vDIA acquisition way improves both selectivity and sensitivity for the compounds at trace levels, which is beneficial for screening performance.