DETERMINATION OF UREA IN MILK BY LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY-ISOTOPE DILUTION MASS SPECTROMETRY

A definitive method based on liquid chromatography isotope dilution mass spectrometry (LC-IDMS) has been developed for the determination of milk urea, an indicator of nutrition status for the lactating animals. The milk samples were treated twice by sequentially adding acetonitrile and chloroform to precipitate proteins and then were directly separated using normal phase liquid chromatography without chemical derivatization. After the matrix separation, exact matching IDMS was used for the determination of milk urea, with high accuracy, high precision, good linearity and low uncertainty. The recoveries obtained for the four spiked milk samples were 100.6-102.2%. The linear range of signal responses was 10-2000 mg . kg(-1) with a linearity coefficient of 0.9995. The intraday and interday precisions in terms with relative standard deviations (RSDs) were 0.17-0.38% and 0.28-0.40%, respectively. The uncertainties of the whole sample analysis process were estimated to be 0.83%, 0.60%, and 0.64% for three samples with concentrations of 151.28, 184.36, and 266.66 mg . kg(-1).