Determination of amprolium, carbadox, monensin, and tylosin in surface water by liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry

Antibiotics present in the environment are recently considered as emerging contaminants, and have raised increasing concerns about their potential risks to ecosystems and human health. In addition to the utilization for treatment, antibiotics are also routinely added as supplements in livestock feed to promote animal growth. A portion of the administered dose used for these purposes can be excreted into animal manure, and land application of the animal manure as plant fertilizers enhances the dissemination of antibiotics in the environment. It is a common practice to simultaneously administer multiple classes of antibiotics to livestock in an animal production farm. This study attempts to develop a protocol to determine four commonly used veterinary pharmaceuticals, amprolium, carbadox, monensin, and tylosin, in surface runoff from a livestock farm. A single-cartridge solid-phase extraction procedure was developed to simultaneously extract these veterinary antibiotics from surface water which were subsequently analyzed by liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry. The extraction recoveries of spiked samples ranged from 89 to 113%, and the limits of quantitation were 8, 25, 1, and 35 ng/L for amprolium, carbodox, monensin, and tylosin, respectively. In the surface runoff from a livestock farm, amprolium was most frequently detected with the concentration range of 10-288 ng/L. Monensin was frequently detected with concentrations up to 37 ng/L. Tylosin was detected in two out of eleven samples, and carbadox was not detected in the surface runoff. The results indicate that the developed analytical method can be utilized to determine multiple classes of veterinary antibiotics present in surface runoff originating from animal farms.