6-Oxy-(N-succinimidyl acetate)-9-(2′-methoxycarbonyl)fluorescein as a new fluorescent labeling reagent for aliphatic amines in environmental and food samples using high-performance liquid chromatography

6-Oxy-(N-succinimidyl acetate)-9-(2′-methoxycarbonyl)fluorescein (SAMF), a new fluorescein-based amine-reactive fluorescent probe was well designed, synthesized and used as a pre-column derivatizing reagent for the determination of aliphatic amines in HPLC. It exhibited relatively pH-independent fluorescence (pH 4–9) and excellent photostability. The derivatization was performed at room temperature in 6 min. On a C18 column, the derivatives of SAMF with eight aliphatic amines were baseline separated in 28 min with a mobile phase of methanol–water (57:43, v/v) containing 10 mmol l−1 pH 5.0, H3Cit3–NaOH buffer. With fluorescent detection at λex/λem = 484/516 nm, the detection limit could reach 2–320 fmol (signal-to-noise = 3), which was equivalent to or better than the detection limits obtained from other analytical methods of aliphatic amines. The proposed method has been applied to the determination of the aliphatic amines in environmental and food samples such as lake water, red wine, white wine, and cheese with satisfying recoveries varying from 95 to 106%.