The development and validation of a solid phase extraction/HPLC method for the determination of aflatoxins in groundnut meal

The efficiency of an analytical method for the determination of aflatoxins in groundnut meal has been statistically examined. The procedure consists of a phenyl bonded phase (PH) clean-up of an acetone: water (85∶15) extract followed by HPLC quantification. Average recoveries from spiked groundnut meal extracts were calculated to be 101.3% and 101.8%, with limits of detection of 7.4 and 2.62 μg/kg for aflatoxins-B1 and-B2 respectively. Higher recoveries of aflatoxin-B1 from naturally contaminated samples were recorded using the proposed procedure than those recorded using the official AOAC (CB) method although the precisions of the two methods were not found to differ at the 5% significance level. Similar recoveries of aflatoxin-B2 were recorded for both methods but the proposed procedure was found to be more precise. The proposed PH-HPLC method was far less time consuming and more economical on solvents than the CB procedure.