Determination and dietary intake risk assessment of 14 pesticide residues in apples of China

Abstract

The presence of pesticide residues in apples raises serious health concerns. In this study, a novel, sensitive, high-performance method was developed to simultaneously analyze the residues of 14 pesticides in apples using modified QuEChERS sample pretreatment coupled with ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS). The optimized purification procedure demonstrated satisfactory recovery and precision for all the tested pesticides. The limits of detection (LOD) and quantification (LOQ) values of 14 pesticides in the apple matrix ranged from 0.03 μg/kg to 0.3 μg/kg and 0.1 μg/kg to 1.0 μg/kg, respectively. The proposed method detected six pesticides in the apple samples collected from 20 counties in China's major apple-producing regions. Furthermore, the risk quotient (RQ, %) of the detected pesticides was evaluated by the national estimated acceptable daily intake. The RQs of six pesticides in Chinese people of different age groups were less than 100%.