Use of semiautomatic equipment for the determination of fumonisin B1 in milk

A HPLC method for the determination of fumonisin in milk was modified. In c omparison with the original method, semiautomatic equipment have been used in the purification step by means of immunoaffinity columns, and in the der ivatization and LC injection steps. The use of these equipments provided go od repeatability, short process time, and in particular the analysis of sev eral samples in the same time could be carried out. The accuracy of the modified method resulted to be acceptable within the co nsidered concentration range. The detector response resulted to be linear in the range 0.001-0.010 mug. T he detection limit was 0.010 mug mL(-1). The recovery of fumonisin from mil k samples at fortification levels of 0.025, 0.05 and 0.1 mug mL(-1) resulte d to be 83.1, 79.7 and 73.5% respectively.