Determination of Biogenic Amines in Seawater Using Capillary Electrophoresis with Capacitively Coupled Contactless Conductivity Detection

A rapid and green analytical method based on capillary electrophoresis with capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection (C⁴D) for the determination of eight environmental pollutants, the biogenic amines (putrescine, cadaverine, spermidine, spermine, tyramine, 2-phenylamine, histamine and tryptamine), is described. The separation was achieved under normal polarity mode at 24 °C and 25 kV with a hydrodynamic injection (50 mbar for 5 s) and using a bare fused-silica capillary (95 cm length × 50 µm i.d.) (detection length of 10.5 cm from the outlet end of the capillary). The optimized background electrolyte consisted of 400 mM malic acid. C⁴D parameters were set at a fixed amplitude (50 V) and frequency (600 kHz). Under the optimum conditions, the method exhibited good linearity over the range of 1.0⁻100 µg mL−1 (R² ≥ 0.981). The limits of detection based on signal to noise (S/N) ratios of 3 and 10 were ≤0.029 µg mL−1. The method was used for the determination of seawater samples that were spiked with biogenic amines. Good recoveries (77⁻93%) were found.