Comparison of six methods of analysis for the determination of aflatoxin B1 in feeding stuffs containing citrus pulp.

Six published methods of analysis for the determination of aflatoxin B1 have been compared for their suitability to determine aflatoxin B1 in feeding stuffs containing citrus pulp. These methods are the official European Community (EC) procedure, four procedures proposed in the European Community to replace this method and a new procedure developed by the authors of this article. In all procedures chloroform is used for initial extraction. Various clean-up systems are then applied. For the ultimate separation and detection, use is made of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) in three procedures and two-dimensional thin layer chromatography (TLC) in two procedures. One method allows either HPLC or TLC. All experiments were carried out with samples of a batch of feeding stuff containing citrus pulp, artificially contaminated with aflatoxins B1, B2, G1 and G2 at levels of ca 13, 5, 10 and 4 micrograms/kg respectively. Three methods were found to be suitable: a procedure in which gel permeation clean-up and two-dimensional TLC are used; a procedure in which TLC clean-up and reverse phase HPLC with postcolumn derivatization are used: a procedure in which cartridge clean-up and either HPLC or TLC are used. The latter method is preferred because its efficient clean-up yields a very clean extract, allowing the application of various systems of HPLC or TLC. Published recovery data of these three methods for aflatoxin B1 vary from 85-90% at a level of ca 10 micrograms/kg feeding stuff.