An Improved, Rapid, and Sensitive Ultra-High-Performance Liquid Chromatography-High-Resolution Orbitrap Mass Spectrometry Analysis for the Determination of Highly Polar Pesticides and Contaminants in Processed Fruits and Vegetables

Abstract

A rapid, specific, and sensitive method based on quick polar pesticide extraction and ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry with an Orbitrap analyzer was evaluated. Usually, pesticides were analyzed individually using derivatization or ion-pairing techniques and detection by ion chromatography. We identified and simultaneously quantified 6 highly polar compounds (glyphosate, aminomethyl phosphonic acid (AMPA), phosphonic acid, fosetyl-Al, chlorate, and perchlorate) in 83 processed fruits and vegetables as well as 15 infant foods. Isotopically labeled internal standards 18O4-perchlorate, 18O3-chlorate, and 13C2 15N-glyphosate were applied to quantify five polar compounds and to compensate for any factor affecting the recovery rates. Only AMPA was quantified using a standard addition approach to compensate for matrix effects. This analytical methodology is fast and reliable, and it is also able to satisfy the strict requirements of infant food analysis.

UPLC-MS: An Emerging Novel Technology and Its Application in Food Safety

“…• Quantification of pesticides residues in food [24][25][26] • Amino acid profiling [9,27] • Multi-drug residue quantitation in food matrix [28] • Metabolomics study in food safety [9] • Analysis of food contaminants in food matrices • Analysis of natural medicine and herbal medicine [9] • Determination of acrylamide in food matrix [29] • Analysis of mycotoxin in food [30,31] • Determination of bromate in drinking water [32] • Pesticide in fruit and vegetables [33] • Determination of food-borne carcinogens heterocyclic amines [34] • Capsaicinoids analysis in capsicum species [35] • Analysis of vitamin in food…”

“…However, it has been reported that, these chemical has very harmful effect on human health [52]. Savini et al [33] reported a quick and sensitive UPLC method coupled with Orbitrap for determining highly polar pesticides and contaminants in processed fruits and vegetables.…”

Current Strategies for Studying the Natural and Synthetic Bioactive Compounds in Food by Chromatographic Separation Techniques

“…As it can be observed, liquid chromatography is particularly appropriate for the analysis of polar, non-volatile, and/or thermally labile pesticides. Because of its high selectivity and sensitivity, HPLC and UHPLC in combination with MS/MS have mostly been used in this field especially to determine the insecticides and herbicides belonging to organophosphorus compounds, imidazolinone and pyridine carboxylic acid derivatives, and in study of samples containing multiclass pesticides [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]27,[30][31][32][33][34]. However, in a few cases, i.e., triazine and phenylurea herbicides, the HPLC coupled with spectrophotometric detection HPLC-UV or DAD has also been applied [25,26,28].…”

A Review of the Analytical Methods Based on Chromatography for Analyzing Glyphosate in Foods

“…Melton et al still used the ion chromatography but coupled with the tandem mass spectrometry (IC-MS/MS) for determining highly polar pesticides (including GLY, AMPA, and GLU) in 288 samples of melon, peas without pods, and pineapple [81]. Finally, a paper by Savini et al worth to be mentioned: the authors used the UHPLC coupled with a orbitrap detector for analyzing GLPY, AMPA, GLUF, and other polar pesticides in 98 samples (83 processed fruits and vegetables and 15 infant foods) [82]. Using the developed method, the authors obtained LOQ of 0.003 mg kg −1 for all three compounds, recoveries 75-113% in all matrices, RSDs below 18.5%, and a R 2 between 0.9954 and 0.9998 in the linear range of 0.001-0.1 mg L −1 .…”