Chapter 10 - Identification of Pesticide Transformation Products in Food Applying High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

High-resolution mass spectrometry was used for the structural identification of pesticide metabolites in plants in a controlled greenhouse study. The three pesticides studied were imidacloprid, imazalil, and propiconazole. The pesticides were added to soil to evaluate the intake and transformation in onions and lettuce. The identification of metabolites is a difficult task to achieve, particularly when standards are not available. In this sense, techniques that use accurate mass measurements come into play for unequivocal identification of nontarget analytes. Several metabolites were identified using a whole variety of accurate mass tools including isotope mass filters, molecular features, and mass profiling. Some of these metabolites have never been reported in the literature and constitute an example of the power of high-resolution mass techniques for the unequivocal structural identification of new transformation products.