Fully automated derivatization and quantification of Glyphosate and AMPA in beer using a standard UHPLC-MS/MS system

Glyphosate is currently one of the most common pesticides used worldwide. In spite of its approval by regulatory bodies all over the world, the concern about its harm to humans and the environment persists. Therefore, the strict control of Glyphosate and its metabolite Aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) in food and environment is mandatory.
The chromatography of glyphosate is challenging due to its high polarity. In order to overcome this, there exists a well-established method including a derivatization step with 9-fluorenylmethyl chloroformate (FMOC) followed by LCMS analysis.
Here we report a fully automated derivatization followed by LC-MS/MS analysis of beer samples. The instrumental set-up does not require any additional hardware for sample pretreatment but uses the built-in pretreatment function of the autosampler.