Abstract: An ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) method was developed for the determination of cyanuric acid residues in milk powder. Samples were thoroughly suspended in 60 ℃ water and dialyzed against deionized water for 3 h in 60 ℃ water bath before analysis on reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole tandem mass spectrometry. Mass spectral acquisition was applied with a multiple reaction-monitoring (MRM) mode. Qualitative analysis was achieved on the basis of the retention time and information about parent ions and two daughter ions. Quantitative determination was carried out on the basis of the characteristic ion of m/z 42.0. The linear range for cyanuric acid was between 5μg/L and100μg/L with a correlation coefficients (r2) of larger than 0.9999. The average recovery rate for cyanuric acid ranged between 87.5% and 98.8% in milk powder samples spiked at the levels of 100.0, 500.0 μg/kg and 1000.0μg/kg. The relative standard deviation (RSD) was less than 9%. The detection limit of this method was 100.0μg/kg. Therefore, this method is simple and suitable for routine analysis of milk powder.

Key words: cyanuric acid, milk powder, UPLC-MS/MS