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Articulo Plagicidad en Vegetales
Articulo Plagicidad en Vegetales
4, 2001 1209
TECHNICAL COMMUNICATIONS
Chemicals
for quality evaluation of commodities. For many years, the (a) Reagents.—Pesticide standards certified (Labor Dr.
Laboratorio Agroalimentario of Valencia has analyzed thou- Ehrenstorfer-Schäfers, Augsburg, Germany). Acetone, di-
sands of fruit and vegetable samples for organophosphorus, chloromethane, cyclohexane, toluene, methanol, and petro-
organochlorine, and pyrethroid pesticides at low levels by gas leum ether were all pesticide residue quality (Scharlau, Barce-
chromatography (GC) using selective detectors: flame photo- lona, Spain). Triphenyl phosphate (TPP), internal standard,
metric, nitrogen phosphorus, and electron capture detectors purity 99.5% (Ehrenstorfer). Internal standard (IS) solution of
(FPD, NPD, and ECD; 1–6). Although these detectors are suf- TPP was prepared at 0.2 mg/L in cyclohexane.
ficiently sensitive for compliance with maximum residues (b) Standard materials.—The pesticides listed in Tables 1
limits (MRLs) in European Union regulations, they provide and 2 were of the highest purity available. Each stock standard
poor specificity for confirmation in these matrixes; therefore, was prepared in toluene at 1 mg/mL and stored at 5ºC.
GC coupled to mass spectrometry (MS) was required. Working standards solutions (0.01–0.50 mg/L) were prepared
Many studies have reported the use of GC/MS to control by appropriate dilutions in internal standard solutions.
pesticide residues in matrixes such as fruit, vegetables, milk,
and soils, with either full scan or selected ion monitoring Instruments
(SIM; 7–14). However, GC/MS in full scan provides low sen-
(a) Homogenizer.—Heidolph Diax 600 (Schawabach,
Germany).
(b) Food chopper.—Dito-Sama K-55 (Aubusson,
Received June 28, 2000, Accepted by JS October 18, 2000. France).
1210 GAMÓN ET AL.: JOURNAL OF AOAC INTERNATIONAL VOL. 84, NO. 4, 2001
a
LOD = limit of detection expressed as minimum concentration determined at S/N = 5.
ture, 70°C; initial time, 0.50 min; 100°C/min rate; 310°C final Analytical Procedure
temperature, 10 min final time, then cooling to initial tempera-
Extraction.—After homogenization of 2 kg fruit or vegeta-
ture. Column constant flow was 1 mL/min; split ratio, initial:
bles, a 15 g portion was weighed into a 250 mL Teflon centri-
open 100:1, closed 0.50 min at 3.5 min, ratio 100:1 open. Col-
fuge bottle and then homogenized with 30 mL acetone for
umn oven program, initial temperature at 70°C for 3.5 min,
30 s. A 60 mL volume of dichloromethane–petroleum ether
ramp to 180°C at 25°C/min, hold for 10 min; then ramp to
(1 + 1) was added, and the mixture was homogenized for
300°C at 4°C/min, and hold for 10 min.
1 min, after centrifuging at 4000 rpm for 5 min. The organic
Carbofrit is conditioned inside injector port by heating at phase was decanted into a graduated flask, and volume of ex-
300°C for 2 h; 2 m × 0.25 mm id precolumn was also used. tract was measured (usually ca 85 mL). An aliquot of extract
MS operating conditions: Trap temperature, 200°C; mani- (10 mL) was concentrated to dryness in a rotary evaporator
fold, 50°C; transfer line, 280°C; EI and methanol CI tuned per with water bath at 35°C. The residue was dissolved in 2 mL in-
factory recommendations. ternal standard solution. Concentration factor was ca 1 g/mL
Autosampler in sandwich mode, needle residence time, sample. Then, 10 µL of this solution was injected into the
0.10 min; solvent plug, 10 µL; pause time, 5 s; uptake speed, GC/MS system.
30 µL/s; vial needle depth, 90%; injection rate, 10 µL/s; and Analysis.—Each sample was analyzed in 2 different injec-
sample volume 10 µL. tions, one in EI/MS/MS mode and the other in methanol
GAMÓN ET AL.: JOURNAL OF AOAC INTERNATIONAL VOL. 84, NO. 4, 2001 1213
CI/MS/MS mode. MS/MS conditions are summarized in Ta- analysis: injection, selectivity for organochlorine pesticides,
bles 1 and 2, respectively. These conditions were developed selectivity, and sensitivity for organophosphorus pesticides.
experimentally to obtain the best sensitivity and spectral iden- Injecting vegetable extracts is very complicated and must
tification for each of the analyzed pesticides. be carefully considered. Standard isothermal splitless injec-
tion gives good results for chlorinated pesticides but not for
Results and Discussion phosphorus pesticides. In addition, parts on the injection port
must be cleaned or changed frequently to maintain sensitivity
of the system. The column near the injector port must be
The proposed method attempts to resolve the problems in- scored to eliminate background interference. All of these
volved in analysis of pesticide residues in vegetable extracts. problems are minimized with the large volume injection
The main problems are related to complex matrixes. Previ- (LVI) technique. Injection of 10 µL increases sensitivity
ously, the matrix effect was handled by very complicated and enough to improve the detection limit of the method for deter-
difficult sample preparation and cleaning procedures. With mining maximum residue limits (MRLs). The introduction of
those procedures, pesticide recoveries were poor and sensitiv- carbofrit (20) improves the inertness of the injector port. In
ity was diminished. Today the trend is to minimize sample such injection, injector port initial temperature must be main-
preparation and make the analysis selective. Several factors tained at the solvent boiling point while the split vent is on; af-
have been considered to avoid the problems related to this ter 0.5 min, the split vent is closed and the injector is heated
1214 GAMÓN ET AL.: JOURNAL OF AOAC INTERNATIONAL VOL. 84, NO. 4, 2001
until it reaches the final temperature. Meanwhile, column tem- present. Table 1 presents the conditions used for the com-
perature begins at the boiling point temperature for 3.5 min to pounds analyzed by EI/MS/MS.
provide complete entrance of the analytes into the column. Fragmentation of organophosphorus pesticides, mainly
The temperature is then increased to 180°C with a slow ramp pesticides showing low mass ions, is very different from that
of 4°C/min to 300°C to completely elute all compounds from of organochlorines. Intense ions in the spectra of these ex-
the column. With this injection technique, we achieved very pressed compounds are usually less than 120 uma and EI be-
good sensitivity, and background was reduced by absorption comes very difficult because of the high background in this
of the sample matrix by the carbofrit. Each carbofrit has a long range produced by the sample matrix. Chromatograms are
lifetime of up to 800 injections depending on the matrix con- shown of orange extract-spiked methamidophos, acephate,
and dimethoate in EI (Figure 1) and in CI (Figure 2). The in-
tent of the sample. Changing the carbofrit and precolumn on a
creased sensitivity to pesticides in CI compared with EI was
regular basis will give the analytical column a lifetime of at
produced by using Varian’s Selective Ejection Chemical Ion-
least 2 years or more.
ization, which provided clean positive chemical ionization
Regarding sensitivity to organochlorine pesticides, several spectra and, thus, substantially decreased the background.
authors (15–20) reviewed the advantages of EI/MS/MS detec- Methanol was used as reagent gas in CI, making it possible to
tion with increased sensitivity and decreased background by obtain clean and reproducible spectra.
isolation of one ion and a second fragmentation. For Figure 3 shows that very intense and higher mass ions were
quantitation we used an ion produced in the second fragmen- obtained for dimethoate unlike the unspecific ions of EI for
tation that did not exist in EI; the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio organophosphorus pesticides. The choice of the CI reagent
was maximized instead in EI where all the background was gas is also very important. Choosing methanol instead of stan-
GAMÓN ET AL.: JOURNAL OF AOAC INTERNATIONAL VOL. 84, NO. 4, 2001 1215
dard gases such as methane or isobutane provides very high lectivity and sensitivity allows quantification and identifica-
M+1 ions and not much fragmentation. tion of low levels of pesticides in vegetable samples. Large
Although the CI spectrum does not provide enough spec- volume injection and GC/MS/MS combination can be used in
tral information for sufficient confirmation security, these routine analysis to provide good results.
high mass ions are very good as parent ions for MS/MS pur-
poses, providing extra unequivocal confirmation by the im-
proved selectivity, as shown in Figure 4 for dimethoate. Ta- References
ble 2 lists all the conditions used for the compounds analyzed
by CI/MS/MS. (1) De Paoli, M., Barbina, M.T., Damiano, V., Fabbro, D., &
Bruno, R. (1997) J. Chromatogr. A 765, 127–131
Good sensitivity was achieved for all organophosphorus
(2) Andersson, A., & Ohlin, B. (1986) Var Foeda Suppl. 38,
pesticides in orange extract spiked samples, as shown in Ta-
79–109
ble 2 and Figure 5 for dimethoate (0.01 mg/kg), where the S/N
(3) Luke, M.A., & Masumoto, H.T. (1986) Anal. Methods Pest.
ratio was >50. Notice that there are no chromatographic inter-