Determination of Synthetic Antibacterials in Cultured Fish by High Performance Liquid Chromatography

A high performance liquid chromatographic method for determination of furazolidone, difurazone, sulfamonomethoxine and sulfadimethoxine in cultured fishes has been developed.Synthetic antibacterials extracted from samples were adsorbed on an alumina column and were eluted with 20ml of 95% acetonitrile as fraction I (nitrofurans) and then with 30ml of 85% acetonitrile as fraction II (sulfa drugs). Each fraction was injected into an HPLC column packed with Nucleosil 5C18. Fractions I and II were eluted with acetonitrile-acetic acid-water=70:0.1:30 and 30:0.05:70, with detection at 380 and 272nm, respectively.The recoveries of furazolidone, difurazone, sulfamonomethoxine and sulfadimethoxine were in the ranges of 95.5-99.7%, 84.0-90.0%, 96.7-101.3% and 95.3-99.0%, respectively. The limit of detection of each drug was 0.03ppm in the test samples.