Simultaneous multi-determination of pesticide residues in barberry: A risk assessment study

Abstract

This research aims to analyze 57 pesticide residues in 35 ready-to-use barberry samples collected from hypermarkets in Iran by Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged, and Safe (QuEChERS) approach using acetonitrile for the extraction, and surface adsorbents for clean-up procedure, followed by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS). In addition, non-carcinogenic probabilistic health risk assessment was estimated by Hazard Quotient (HQ) and Hazard Index (HI) based on the Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) method. Results demonstrated that 48.5% of samples contained pesticide residues including carbendazim, dimethoate, imidacloprid, chlorpyrifos, diazinon, fenitrothion, and fenpropathrin. Approximately 14% of the samples contained residue levels higher than MRL values including carbendazim, dimethoate, and chlorpyrifos. The highest pesticide concentration exceeding MRLs belonged to dimethoate with average residual value of 1.04 mg kg−1. The rank order of percentile 95% as health risk benchmark of HQ calculated for pesticides in adults’ consumers of barberry was dimethoate > chlorpyrifos > carbendazim with values of 5.63E-3, 2.14E-3, and 4.07E-6, respectively, while percentile 95% values of HQ in the children’s consumers were 2.64E-2, 9.97E-3, and 1.88E-5 with the same rank order. HI values in adults and children due to ingestion of barberry were 7.77E-3 and 4.63E-2, respectively. The results of this assessment demonstrated that the consumers were not at considerable non-carcinogenic risk in this commodity.