Headspace solid-phase microextraction in combination with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry for the rapid screening of organophosphorus insecticide residues in strawberries and cherries

Abstract

A headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) method in combination with GC–MS was used for the extraction and quantification of diazinon, fenitrothion, fenthion, parathion ethyl, bromophos methyl, bromophos ethyl and ethion. The method was developed using a 100-μm poly(dimethylsiloxane) fiber. The obtained results showed higher responses of the insecticides after addition of aliquots of water and solvent to the fruit samples. Calibration curves that were constructed for the analytes spiked into strawberry and cherry samples followed linear relationships with good correlation coefficients ( R 2>0.986). Linearity range was between 50 and 500 μg/kg and the precision was found to be lower than 15% when applying the optimized HS-SPME procedure to fruit samples. Limits of detection in both strawberry and cherry samples using GC–MS (selected ion monitoring mode) were below 13 μg/kg. Moreover, the HS-SPME method was applied to the analysis of fruit samples and compared with liquid–liquid extraction. Results obtained in this study were in good agreement with those obtained using liquid–liquid extraction demonstrating that the recommended procedure was a fast, accurate and stable sample pretreatment method obtaining good efficiency for the extraction of organophosporus insecticides from strawberries and cherries.