Studies on residual antibacterials in foods. III. High-performance liquid chromatographic determination of penicillin G in animal tissues using an on-line pre-column concentration and purification system.

A simple and reproducible method for the determination of residual penicillin G in edible animal tissues by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is described. The method consists in an off-line clean-up step using a basic aluminium oxide column and a Sep-Pak C18 cartridge and an on-line pre-column concentration and purification system. The procedure shows good sensitivity and precision. The recoveries from cattle liver, kidney and muscle fortified with 1 microgram/g of sodium penicillin G were 75.0-92.6% and the relative standard deviations were 2.35-4.06%. The detection limit corresponded to 0.05 micrograms/g of sodium penicillin G in animal tissues.