Direct determination of biogenic amines in wine by integrating continuous flow clean-up and capillary electrophoresis with indirect UV detection.

A flow-injection manifold for automating the determination of biogenic amines in wine using capillary electrophoresis (CE) with indirect UV detection was developed. The ensuing method involves clean-up and solid-phase extraction (SPE) of the target analytes in the sample. Various treatments involving different SPE minicolumns were tested and compared. The C18 minicolumn was chosen to concentrate the amines following addition of ammonium chloride and ammonium hydroxide as buffer to neutralize them. Additions of amine standards were used to determine recoveries. Biogenic amines can be separated and detected after SPE with limits of detection in the range 0.05-0.1 microgram ml-1 by using 4 mM copper(II) sulphate, formic acid and 18-crown-6 as running buffer. All the amines studied are eluted within 15 min under the optimum conditions established. The overall process was successfully used to identify biogenic amines in various types of wine from different Spanish regions.