Determination of Melamine in Eggs by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

A gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric method for the quantitative analysis of melamine in eggs has been developed. The sample was extracted by trichloroacetic acid, settled by lead acetate for the protein precipitation, cleaned-up by the MCX cation exchange solid phase extraction column, derivatized with BSTFA+TMCS (99+1) and processed for analysis by the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The calibration curves showed good linearity in the range of 0.010~2.00 mg/L for melamine with a correlation coefficent of 0.9996. The limit of detection was 0.01 mg/kg. The recoveries were 90.1%-94.7% and relative standard deviations were 1.7%-5.3%. The method is accurate and sensitive for the determination of melamine in eggs.