Ultra-Low Level Pesticide Residues Analysis using a New Enhanced Sensitivity GC-MS/MS System

The detection, quantification, and identification of pesticide residues at low concentrations in food, and particularly in baby foods, are important to ensure the safety of the food supply and to protect consumers. Direct analysis of QuEChERS acetonitrile extracts using a 'state-of–the-art' GC-MS/MS system equipped a high efficiency advanced electron ionisation source (AEI) enabled the quantitation of around 200 pesticides at 1ng/g in baby foods. The innovative AEI source proved to be extremely robust and required minimal infrequent cleaning, thus increasing instrument uptime. All data were fully compliant with current EU SANTE method performance criteria. The system also provided:

Unstoppable sensitivity to allow lower injection volumes or dilution of extracts
Fast acquisition of multiple SRMs per pesticide to provide increased selectivity for complex matrices
Higher productivity enabled by highly efficient automated data processing using Thermo Scientific Chromeleon 7.2 Chromatography Data System (CDS) software

About the presenter

Richard Law Senior, Applications Specialist, Thermo Fisher Scientific

Richard Law is a Senior Applications Specialist working in the Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry Division of at Runcorn, UK. Richard is an experienced analytical chemist and mass spectrometrist responsible for application and method development using various GC–MS technologies, in particular GC-triple quadrupole MS/MS. Richard has worked in various industries gaining strong hands-on experience with GC and GC–MS systems used to investigate trace chemicals in environmental and industrial applications.