Development of an Easy Multiresidue Method for Fat-Soluble Pesticides in Animal Products Using Gas Chromatography–Tandem Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

The determination of pesticide residues in animal samples requires several analytical steps which may be time-consuming extraction procedures and with a small scope. For fat-soluble pesticides, the determination of fat is essential as they tend to bioaccumulate in fat. As to address these concerns, an easy acetonitrile-based multiresidue method combined with GC-MS-MS technology for the determination of the fat-soluble analytes was developed and validated on animal products. Analytes from several chemical classes such as diphenyl ethers, pyrethroids, organochlorides, triazoles, carbamide, chlorophenyls, dinitroaniline, organophosphorus, chloroacetamides, benzamides, aromatic hydrocarbon and dicarboximide known, due to their fat-soluble property, to bioaccumulate in animal tissues were selected. The method showed acceptable linearity (r ≥ 0.99) and accuracy with recoveries between 70 and 120 % and precision with SD_R ≤ 20 % for the majority of the analytes studied. For the analytes that presented accuracy and precision values outside the acceptable limits, the method still is able to serve as a semi-quantitative method. The contribution of the determination of the fat in the results was also investigated. The limit of detection was set at 0.003 mg/kg. The proposed methodology was applied to meat and offal samples from the regional market in Attiki (Greece).