Determination of biogenic amines as dansyl derivatives in alcoholic beverages by high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorimetric detection and characterization of the dansylated amines by liquid chromatography–atmospheric pressure chemical ioniza

A sensitive high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the simultaneous determination of 11 biogenic amines has been developed. The method involves addition of an internal standard (1,7-diaminoheptane), pre-column dansylation of the amines and subsequent solid-phase extraction of the derivatives through C18 cartridges. The dansylamides were separated on an Inertsil ODS-3 column (250×4 mm I.D., 5 μm) using a 35-min gradient elution with a binary system of acetonitrile–water, a flow-rate of 1 ml min−1 and fluorescence detection at excitation and emission wavelengths of 320 and 523 nm, respectively. The identity of the dansyl derivatives was confirmed by liquid chromatography–atmospheric pressure chemical ionization mass spectrometry. Linearity of derivatization was obtained for concentrations ranging from 0.008 to 40.0 mg l−1. The within- and between-day relative standard deviations ranged from 0.2 to 7.6% and 0.3 to 8.6%, respectively. The overall process was successfully applied to identify and quantify biogenic amines in white-, red- and Retsina Greek wines and Greek beers, after treatment with polyvinylpyrrolidone.