Chapter 1 - Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry Techniques for Multiresidue Pesticide Analysis in Agricultural Commodities

Abstract

Multiresidue methods are the most common approaches to analyze pesticide residues because the pesticide application on an agricultural commodity is usually not known. Since there are hundreds of pesticides available, it is essentially impractical to apply individual single residue analysis for every pesticide in various types of food products. The challenge is to process a sample using a single procedure or a limited number of procedures that can identify and quantitate as many pesticides with varying physical and chemical properties as possible that could potentially be present in a wide variety of agricultural matrices. Over the past 20 years, capillary gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) has played a major role in the analysis of pesticides in foods. Despite the increasing popularity of liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS), GC–MS is still widely used because of its affordability, ruggedness, and effectiveness in multiresidue pesticide procedures. GC–MS is primarily used to analyze a variety of thermally stable and volatile or semivolatile pesticides as well as other industrial contaminants such as PCBs, dioxins, brominated flame retardants, and related persistent organic pollutants in diverse food matrices that currently cannot be analyzed by conventional LC–MS methods. This chapter will attempt to account the past and present use and the future of multiresidue procedures that utilize a variety of GC–MS systems and platforms for the analysis of pesticide residues in foods and related agricultural products.