Triple quadrupole vs ion trap sensitivity in a multiresidue pesticides analysis in selected fruit and vegetables

Abstract

Mass spectrometry stands for highly selective and sensitive instrumental technique ; therefore, it has many applications in various scientific fields. Sensitivity is usually defined as the change in measured signal per unit change in analyte concentration. Several factors such as the effective sample preparation, mobile phase composition, chromatographic column parameters and mass spectrometer features can affect this parameter. By keeping rest of the parameters the same, the effect of mass spectrometer features on the sensitivity of multi-residue pesticides analysis was investigated. Linear ion trap and triple quadrupole, as the two most exploited mass analyzers, were compared. The comparison of sensitivity for solvent-based and QuEChERS treated fruit-and vegetable-based pesticides standards demonstrated triple quadrupole as a highly sensitive instrument. The analysis of solvent-based standards on the triple quadrupole was from 4 to 71 times more sensitive than the analysis on the linear ion trap. Sensitivity enhancement for lemon-based standards ranged from 15 to 138 times, and for vegetable-based standards (tomato, lettuce, cucumber) it ranged from about 5 to about 70 times, when shifting from linear ion trap to triple quadrupole. Sensitivity comparison for solvent-and sample-based standards majorly evidenced the presence of a strong matrix effect, thus reflecting the need to perform analytes quantification against sample-based standards in an actual sample analysis.