Health risk assessment of neonicotinoid insecticide residues in pistachio using a QuEChERS‐based method in combination with HPLC‐UV

Abstract

There is an increasing need to address the potential risks arising from combined exposures to multiple residues from pesticides in the diet. Pesticide residue‐related pollution is a problem that arises because of the increased use of pesticides in agriculture to meet the growing demands of food production. In this study, pesticide residue data were obtained based on an optimized extraction method. For this purpose, we established a method based on quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe (QuEChERS) extraction for simultaneous determination of imidacloprid (IMI) and acetamiprid (ACT) in pistachio nuts. The parameters influencing the QuEChERS method were the sample‐to‐water ratio and adsorbent amounts. As a result, both were optimized to improve the recovery of the analytes as well as the clean‐up efficiency of the pistachio matrix. Our results indicated that a freeze‐out step and use of primary and secondary amines as an adsorbent led to much cleaner chromatograms with lower baseline drift, without using graphitized carbon black and C18‐based adsorbent, which reduced both cost and time of analysis. Following extraction, the pesticide residues were separated and quantified by reverse‐phase HPLC. For validation purposes, recovery studies were carried out using a concentration range from 20 to 2500 μg/L at nine levels. The suitable linearity, precision, and accuracy were obtained with HPLC–UV with recoveries of 70.37%–89.80% for IMI and 81.05%–113.57% for ACT, with relative standard deviations <12%. The validated method was successfully applied to the analysis of pistachio samples collected from a field trial to estimate maximum residue limits. There was no significant health risk for consumers via pistachio consumption.

Residue kinetics of neonicotinoids and abamectin in pistachio nuts under field conditions: model selection, effects of multiple sprayings, and risk assessment

“…Results showed that although the predicted residues exceeded MRLs in some multiple-spraying scenarios, HQ values were consistently below 1, indicating a low health hazard of pesticides for Iranian consumers. These results are in agreement with previous research, which reported no significant risk of neonicotinoid residues via pistachio consumption (Taghizadeh et al 2019;Arabameri et al 2020;Mahdavi et al 2020). Results revealed that average HQ values of all pesticides and all multiple-spraying scenarios were 1.5 and 2 times higher for children compared to teenagers and adults, respectively.…”

“…Pesticides were extracted from pistachio nuts using a modified QuEChERS method based on Mahdavi et al (2020). For this, representative portions of the sample from each treatment (200 g) were milled and homogenized by a hand blender (Braun MultiQuick 5 Vario MQ5235, Germany).…”

“…Iran is among the most prominent producers and exporters of this economically valuable horticultural crop (Dini et al 2018), with a production of 337,815 tons and a harvested area of 12,181 ha in 2019 (FAOSTAT 2019). Continuous and extensive application of insecticides such as imidacloprid (IMI), thiacloprid (THI), thiamethoxam (THX), and abamectin (ABA) is the main strategy for controlling pistachio insect pests in Iran (Faraji et al 2018;Arabameri et al 2020;Mahdavi et al 2020). As pistachio nuts are largely consumed in Iran, evaluating pesticide residues and assessing their potential dietary exposure risk for the consumers is essential.…”

“…So far, research on pesticide residues in pistachio has focused on either evaluation/optimization of analytical methods for their analysis (Faraji et al 2018;Mahdavi et al 2020) or conducting risk assessments based on terminal pesticide residues detected at harvest time (Dini et al 2018;Taghizadeh et al 2019;Arabameri et al 2020;Mahdavi et al 2020). On the other hand, there has been no research on evaluating and parametrizing statistical models for assessing field uptake/ dissipation kinetics of pesticides in pistachio nuts.…”

Determination of 20 neonicotinoid insecticides and their metabolites in infant foods by a modified QuEChERS method combined with HPLC-MS/MS

“…Several analytical methodologies are commonly employed to detect neonicotinoid residues in food. These include high-performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection (HPLC-UV) [20][21][22][23] , high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) [24][25][26][27] , ion chromatography (IC) 28 , gas chromatography (GC) 29 , capillary electrophoresis (CE) [30][31][32] , and non-chromatographic methods [33][34][35][36][37] . Overall, among these methods, HPLC-MS is the most commonly used, based on its reliability, sensitivity, and selectivity.…”