Application Note
Fast GC-MS/MS For High-Throughput Pesticide Analysis
By Igor Fochi, Elena Ciceri, and Hans-Joachim Huebschmann, Thermo Scientific
A wide variety of phytosanitary products are commonly applied in agricultural crops in order to increase production yield and obtain high quality products. Consequently, the control of pesticide residue levels by the performance of monitoring programs is currently an increasing concern for producers, traders, and consumers.
The QuEChERS method is the most diffused analytical procedure for preparing samples of fruits and vegetables while performing a multi-residues pesticides analysis in combination with GC-MS and LC-MS systems. The analytical benefit of the QuEChERS method is the quick procedure with only a short clean-up step to cover a wide variety of polar and less polar pesticide compounds in a multi-component approach. Due to the reduced clean-up however, the produced sample extracts carry a high concentration of vegetal matrix, that raise a particular challenge to the GC and MS systems.
The application of structure selective MS/MS detection for the quantitation of pesticides residues using multiple reaction monitoring methods (MRM) in fruits and vegetables has been proven to overcome matrix effects. The next challenge for commercial routine laboratories is to increase sample throughput to keep pace with the steady increase of the demand for food safety analysis.
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