Determination of Pesticide Residues in Mango Matrices by Ultra High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Coupled with Quadrupole Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

This study describes an accurate mass measurement of pesticide residues (n = 68) in mango matrices by liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time of flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-TOF/MS). The proposed methodology is based on liquid-liquid extraction with a mixture of 25:75 (v/v) acetonitrile/ethyl acetate followed by dispersive solid phase extraction cleanup (primary secondary amine). Method validation was performed in order to establish accuracy, precision, matrix effect, limit of detection, and limit of quantification. The recoveries at three concentration levels (10, 50, and 100 μg kg−1) were in the range of 70–122% with intra- and inter-day relative standard deviations which were lower than 16%. The detection and quantification limits ranged from 0.5 to 7 μg kg−1 and from 2 to 25 μg kg−1, respectively. The developed method provides good linearity, accuracy, precision, and less matrix effects for the quantitation of selected pesticides. The study confirms that this analytical method can be routinely applied for the analysis of pesticide residues in mango matrices. Finally, the validated method was successfully applied to real samples and no positive samples were found.