{"title":"Miniaturization of the QuEChERS method in fruits and vegetables without cryogenic milling: approach to greener analysis of pesticide residues.","authors":"Yuki Yamasaki, Ivan Aloisi, Hans Mol","doi":"10.1080/19440049.2025.2502014","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The present study explored the feasibility of miniaturizing the QuEChERS method for pesticide residue analysis in three types of fruit and vegetables comminuted under ambient conditions. Laboratory samples of > 1-2 kg of spinach, orange, and red grape containing 12 sprayed pesticides which cover broad range of physicochemical properties and up to 6 incurred pesticides were comminuted using either a universal food cutter/mixer (1-step comminution) or a combination of the cutter/mixer followed by further homogenization using an UltraTurrax (2-step comminution). Analytical test portions of different weights (15, 2, and 0.5 g) were subsequently collected, respectively. The weighed test portions were extracted with proportionally scaled-down amounts of acetonitrile and salts, and analyzed by LC-MS/MS. The results showed no problematic variability in analytical results, even for test portions as small as 0.5 g for sprayed and incurred pesticides in all commodities tested. The optimal comminution approach depended on the commodities: while 1-step comminution sufficed in most cases, certain commodities required 2-step comminution to provide sufficient homogeneity for miniaturization. The QuEChERS method can be miniaturized to a 0.5 g test portion for the commodities tested without cryogenic milling, enabling laboratories to conduct a more environmentally friendly analysis of pesticide residues.</p>","PeriodicalId":520628,"journal":{"name":"Food additives & contaminants. Part A, Chemistry, analysis, control, exposure & risk assessment","volume":" ","pages":"902-913"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2000,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Food additives & contaminants. Part A, Chemistry, analysis, control, exposure & risk assessment","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19440049.2025.2502014","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/6/4 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The present study explored the feasibility of miniaturizing the QuEChERS method for pesticide residue analysis in three types of fruit and vegetables comminuted under ambient conditions. Laboratory samples of > 1-2 kg of spinach, orange, and red grape containing 12 sprayed pesticides which cover broad range of physicochemical properties and up to 6 incurred pesticides were comminuted using either a universal food cutter/mixer (1-step comminution) or a combination of the cutter/mixer followed by further homogenization using an UltraTurrax (2-step comminution). Analytical test portions of different weights (15, 2, and 0.5 g) were subsequently collected, respectively. The weighed test portions were extracted with proportionally scaled-down amounts of acetonitrile and salts, and analyzed by LC-MS/MS. The results showed no problematic variability in analytical results, even for test portions as small as 0.5 g for sprayed and incurred pesticides in all commodities tested. The optimal comminution approach depended on the commodities: while 1-step comminution sufficed in most cases, certain commodities required 2-step comminution to provide sufficient homogeneity for miniaturization. The QuEChERS method can be miniaturized to a 0.5 g test portion for the commodities tested without cryogenic milling, enabling laboratories to conduct a more environmentally friendly analysis of pesticide residues.