The Fast Quantification of Vitamin B12 in Milk Powder by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography-Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry

This study presents a new technique for determining vitamin B12 in milk powder using high-performance liquid chromatography-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (HPLC-ICP-MS). We used ultrasonics with potassium ferrocyanide and zinc acetate solutions to extract the samples. 59Co was employed as the analytical target for cyanocobalamin. It was separated using a Phenomenex Luna 5 μm C18 (250 × 4.6 mm) chromatographic column with a mobile phase consisting of 1.6 mmol/L EDTA and 0.4 mmol/L KH2PO4 in a 60% v/v methanol solution (pH = 4.0). The sample has an excellent separating degree for free cobalt and cyanocobalamin, and isocratic elution can be finished within 4.0 min. To eliminate the matrix interference due to the presence of milk powder, we applied collision mode (KED). The linear range of cyanocobalamine ranged from 1.0 μg/L to 20 μg/L, with correlation coefficients (r2) of 0.9994. The limit of detection (LOD) was 0.63 μg/kg, and the limit of quantitation (LOQ) was 2.11 μg/kg. The mean recoveries were in the range of 87.4–103.6%. The accuracy and precision of the developed method are well suited for the fast quantification of the trace vitamin B12 in milk powder.