Pesticide Analysis in Fruit/Vegetable Juice by LC/MS/MS and GC/MS

A study was conducted using the Bruker EVOQ for the analysis of 250 pesticides in apple, orange, cranberry, white grape and vegetable juices using only one method in store-bought juice and simple sample preparation using the Thomson eXtreme|FV®s in a dilute-and-shoot approach without sample enrichment. LC-MS/MS operated in Multiple Reaction Monitoring (MRM) mode with dual scan Electrospray Ionization (ESI) is widely used for polar, semi-volatile, and thermally labile pesticides in food testing. The Bruker EVOQ Elite LC-Triple Quadrupole System provides fast positive/negative switching, allows for simultaneous determination of hundreds of positive and negative co-eluting compounds numbering in the hundreds. Simple sample preparation is explored using Thomson eXtreme|FV®s for sample clean-up instead of lengthy alternatives like SPE or centrifugation followed by liquid-liquid extraction.

Pesticide residues are toxic when found in sufficient quantities in food. This is of particular importance for orange juice because it is consumed in large quantities. In order to reduce the risk to consumers, sensitive, rapid, and cost effective analytical methods are required. The pesticides in orange juice testing shown below compares recoveries for samples prepared using SPE versus Thomson eXtreme|FV ®.