A novel method for simultaneous analysis of three β 2- agonists in foods with the use of a gold-nanoparticle modified glassy carbon electrode and chemometrics

An electrochemical method involving a gold nanoparticle modified glassy carbon electrode (AuNPs/GCE) was researched and developed for the simultaneous analysis of three beta 2-agonists, ractopamine (RAC), salbutamol (SAL) and clenbuterol (CLB). The three analytes were electrocatalytically oxidized at the AuNP/GCE, which enhanced the oxidation peak current and influenced the shift of the oxidation potentials to lower values in comparison with the analysis involving only the GCE. The differential pulse stripping voltammetry (DPSV) voltammograms from the drug mixture produced complex, overlapping profiles, and chemometrics methods were applied for calibration modeling. The peak currents associated with RAC, SAL and CLB measurements were linear as a function of their concentrations (ranges within 0.005-0.150 mu g mL(-1)); the detection limits for RAC, SAL and CLB were 2.4, 5.8 and 2.6 ng mL(-1), respectively. It was shown that satisfactory quantitative results were obtained with the use of the MVC1 package of chemometrics methods e. g. the PLS1 calibration model produced a relative prediction error (RPET) of 7.0% and an average recovery of 97.6%. The above AuNP/GCE was successfully employed for the simultaneous analysis of RAC, SAL and CLB in pork meat, liver and pig feed samples.