Comparison of four extraction methods for the determination of fungicide residues in grapes through gas chromatography–mass spectrometry

Abstract

Four different methods for simultaneous extraction of vinclozolin, dichlofluanid, penconazole, captan, quinoxyfen, fluquinconazol, boscalid and pyraclostrobin from grapes were optimized and further tested. Microwave assisted extraction (MAE), matrix solid-phase dispersion (MSPD), solid–liquid extraction (SLE) and QuEChERS were compared in terms of their limits of detection and quantification and recoveries. For MAE, MSPD and ethyl acetate extraction, the optimal conditions were optimized by using experimental designs. The analysis was performed using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry in the selected ion monitoring mode (GC–MS, SIM). The proposed methods showed good sensitivity, limits of quantification were lower than MRLs and precision (expressed as relative standard deviation) ranged from 2.9 to 11.1%. The recoveries obtained from MAE, MSPD, SLE and QuEChERS were in the range 78–100%, 66–102%, 58–88% and 68–96%, respectively. In addition, the four methods were compared in two ways: by means of calibration curves obtained with 10 fortified samples in the studied range of concentrations and by the application of statistical tests such as Levene's test (to study variance homogeneity), ANOVA and Tukey's test (in case of Levene's test was satisfactory) for the assessment of the information obtained in the analysis of real samples. Both ways of comparison led to the same results: no differences between the four methods for the extraction of vinclozolin, dichofluanid, quinoxyfen, fluquinconazol and pyraclostrobin were found. However, there were differences for the analysis of captan, boscalid and penconazole.