Evaluation of supercritical fluid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry for pesticide residues in food

Abstract

Supercritical fluid chromatography coupled to triple quadrupole mass spectrometry has been evaluated for pesticide residues in food. In order to check its advantages and limitations it was developed a method to identify and quantify 164 pesticides in three different matrices (tomato, orange and leek). A carbon dioxide gradient with methanol (containing 1 mM ammonium formate) was used allowing a flow rate of 1.5 mL/min that made the total run time of 12 min without any problem of overpressure. Addition of a post column flow 150 μL/min of Methanol with ammonium formate/formic acid was necessary to improve the ionization.The matrix effect study revealed that the percentages of pesticides with irrelevant matrix effect (suppression lower than 20%) was 99% in tomato, 87% in orange and 62% in leek, whereas significant suppression (higher than 50%) was not found in tomato and only 1% of the compounds in orange and 3% in leek.These results compare favorably with that typically obtained in LC–MS/MS. The absence of water in the mobile phase, also provided some important advantages regarding LC–MS/MS as (i) higher retention of polar compounds in the column, which elute with high sensitivity and good peak shape and (ii) a general increase of the sensitivity of the analysis, consequence of the high ionization and ion extraction efficiency.Pesticides evaluated were identified following the SANTE/11813/2017. At the spiking concentration of 5 μg/kg, 98% of the pesticides were identified in tomato, 98% in orange and 94% in leek, whereas for the concentration of 10 μg/kg all the compounds were identified in tomato and only spiromesifen was not identified in orange and leek. At the concentration of 20 μg/kg, spiromesifen was also identified in these two matrices. The linearity and reproducibility of the method were evaluated with results which guarantee high quality in the analytical measurements. Even though only 2 μL of final extract were injected, the sensitivity of the SFC method was enough to achieve stringent LOQs.Real samples, including 6 different fruits and vegetables, were analyzed by the SFC-MS/MS proposed method, the results being similar to those obtained by LC–MS/MS. The method was also applied to a proficiency test of fipronil in eggs with good results in all the cases.Carbon dioxide as mobile phase with methanol as modifier can represent a good alternative to LC–MS/MS with reduction of matrix effects and shorter run times.