A kit for determining biogenic amines in 10 sea fish samples is available from Sigma-Aldrich Chemie, which has been developed in cooperation with Metrohm.
The kit includes the IC precolumn, the reagents for the eluents as well as the buffer and the standard solutions.
Sea fish has a short freshness span because of the rapid degradation of amino acids to amines.
Maintaining the freshness of the fish after the catch presents a major challenge to the fishing industry.
A simple ion chromatographic method using conductivity detection helps to meet this challenge.
It does not require an elaborate derivatisation and allows the simultaneous determination of histamine, putrescine and cadaverine.
Using this method, 5g of sea fish is mixed with 50ml acetate buffer, pH = 4.8, and homogenised with a dispersing instrument.
The sample solution is filtered and subsequently injected automatically using an IC Sample Processor.
Three spiked samples are prepared in the same way by adding 300, 500 or 700ul of a mixed amine standard to the fish prior to sample preparation.
The system and the IC method are checked using various standard solutions as well as a sample solution spiked after sample preparation.
The determination of the amine concentrations is carried out by calibration with external standards (seven-point calibration).
