Pesticide Analysis Using the AutoMate-Q40: An Automated Solution to QuEChERS Extractions

摘要

Sample preparation for multiresidue pesticide screening for agriculture commodities can be cumbersome and laborious for multiple sample extractions. With recent advances in multiresidue pesticide screening, methods have been simplified by the introduction of QuEChERS. Either the AOAC Official Method 2007.01, or EN method 15662:2008 requires several manual steps to extract the pesticides of interest (1,2). The AutoMate-Q40 streamlines the QuEChERS method by automating the entire process from homogenate to final extract. All of manual steps including adding acetonitrile (ACN), dispensing buffering salts, shaking, mixing, centrifuging, capping, de-capping, dispersive solid phase extraction (d-SPE) clean up, and finally measuring and delivering the extract. The intent of this study is to evaluate the performance of the AutoMate-Q40, by monitoring pesticide residues in apples and lettuce. The target pesticides will be analyzed using LC-QQQ and GC-MS.