Analysis of Multi Chemical Class Pesticide Residues in Citrus by LC-MS/MS Adopting QuAChERS Technique

There are many analytical methods to estimate the pesticide residues in agriculture produce and food products . The multi chemical group pesticide residue analytical method has been validated for the routine analysis of 54 multi chemical class pesticide residues in Citrus fruit (citrus limetta) and fortified levels of 10 μgkg^-1 to 100 μgkg^-1 by Liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS- TQ) in a single run of 24.01minutes. And the method was applied for the analysis of different fruits i.e., Mango, bear, Banana, grapes, pomegranate, guava etc. By this method volatile and non volatile pesticides of different chemical class can be identified and quantified in single stroke in a sample. Samples were extracted by the adopting QuEChERS method including extraction of sample with acetonitrile and simultaneous liquid partitioning by adding addition of Sodium chloride and Sodium sulphate followed by simple clean up by adding anhydrous magnesium sulfate (MgSO₄) and primary secondary amine (PSA) based on the principle of dispersive solid phase extraction(dSPE). By this method the finding obtained were high recoveries, accuracy, repeatability, reproducibility of results and small quantity of sample and less volumes of solvents are used by this method. The limit of detection (LOD) was 5 μg kg^-1 and limit of quantification in citrus fruit was (LOQ) 10 μg kg^-1 found by this method.