Abstract: A new rapid method for screening and identification of 30 foodborne stimulant drug residues in pork and beef by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole-time of flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-Q-TOF/MS) was developed. The samples were enzymatically digested for 16 h at 37 ℃ and extracted with acetonitrile (containing 0.10% formic acid, V/V), and the extract was cleaned up using a PriME-HLB cartridge, and then separated on a Waters XBridge BEH C18 column by gradient elution. The analytes were detected by time of flight mass spectrometry-tandem mass spectrometry (TOF/MS) and information dependent acquisition-tandem mass spectrometry (IDA-MS/MS), and they were qualitatively screened and confirmed in one data acquisition cycle. The results showed that the mass accuracy errors of the 30 foodborne stimulant drug residues were lower than 5.0 × 10-6. Good linearity in the range of 0.5–100.0 ng/mL were observed for the analytes, with correlation coefficients greater than 0.998 0. The limits of detection were in the range of 0.1–2.0 μg/kg and the limits of quantitation were in the range of 0.2–4.0 μg/kg. The recoveries of the developed method were in the range of 77.99%–109.2%, with relative standard deviations of 0.29%–9.68% (n = 6). This method proved to efficient and accurate and could have great practical value.

Key words: ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole-time of flight mass spectrometry; pork; beef; foodborne stimulant drugs