Simultaneous determination of ten anticoagulant rodenticides in tissues by column-switching UHPLC-ESI-MS/MS

This paper describes the development of a method for the simultaneous determination of ten anticoagulant rodenticides (coumafuryl, warfarin, pindone, coumatetralyl, coumachlor, difenacoum, bromadiolone, brodifacoum, chlorophacinone and flocoumafen) in the liver and kidney based on column-switching liquid chromatography coupled with heated electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry. The simple sample preparation includes extraction with methanol. A C18 trapping column was used for online solid-phase extraction before analytical separation with the mobile phase comprising a mixture of 0.1 % formic acid in water, methanol and acetonitrile. Chromatographic separation was achieved using a Thermo Hypersil ultra high-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) C18 column with the mobile phase consisting of 5 mM ammonium formate buffer (pH = 9) and methanol. The column-switching procedure ensured no matrix effects during electrospray ionization (ESI). Extraction recoveries ranged between 91 and 100 % for liver and between 89 and 97 % for kidney. The method showed good linearity up to 750 ng g−1. The limit of detection ranged between 0.001 and 0.022 ng g−1 for liver and between 0.001 and 0.028 ng g−1 for kidney. The developed method was successfully used in several animal poisoning cases.