Determination of biogenic amines as their benzoyl derivatives after cloud point extraction with micellar liquid chromatographic separation

The advantages of micellar cloud point extraction combined with a surfactant-assisted separation in a HPLC system are presented as a method for the effective separation and determination of nine biogenic amines in fish substrates. Benzoyl derivatives of the amines are extracted inside the micelles of a non-ionic surfactant, Triton X-114, and separated with gradient elution micellar liquid chromatography. Quantification was performed by measuring the UV absorbance of the benzene ring at 254 nm. Detection limits of the nine biogenic amines were in the vicinity of 0.01 mg l−1 which are ∼10 times lower than those of the conventional method (HPLC–UV) and 100 times lower than those of micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography. The correlation coefficients of determinations were 0.9911–0.9996. The method was applied for the determination of putrescine, cadaverine, agmatine, tyramine, tryptamine, phenylethylamine, spermine, spermidine and histamine in trout samples. Recovery of the proposed method ranged from 95 to 103.5%.