Ultrasound probe enhanced enzymatic hydrolysis for rapid separation of β-adrenergic agonists from animal urine and livestock wastewater: Applicability to biomonitoring investigation.

Background: An increasing number of β-adrenergic agonists are illicitly used for growth promoting and lean meat increasing in animal husbandry in recent years, but the development of analytical methods has lagged behind these emerging drugs.

Results: Here, we designed and developed an ultrasound probe enhanced enzymatic hydrolysis reactor for quick separation and simultaneously quantification of 22 β-adrenergic agonists in animal urine and livestock wastewater. Owing to the enhancement of the conventional enzymatic digestion through the ultrasound acoustic probe power, only 2 min was required for the comprehensively separation of β-adrenergic agonists from the sample matrices, making it a much more desirable alternative tool for high-throughput investigation.