Development of a sensitive liquid-liquid extraction and ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method for the analysis of carbaryl residues in fresh vegetables sold in Riyadh

Abstract

An UPLC- mass spectrometry method has been proposed for the screening of carbaryl residues in fresh vegetables. Carbaryl treated samples of lettuce, cucumber and spinach were procured and analyzed for a time period of fifteen days to find out the amount of carbaryl residue. A simple and effective liquid–liquid sample extraction technique has been implemented for extraction of carbaryl. Multiple reactions monitoring analysis mode considering two daughter transitions was used for quantitation and confirmation analysis of carbaryl. The developed method has been authenticated by establishing various validation parameters including, linear ranges (0.001–5.0 µg/mL), percent recovery, reproducibility (precision), limits of detection (0.0003 µg/mL) and limits of quantification (0.0009 µg/mL). The recoveries were obtained in the range of 96.0 and 99.5% (RSD < 3.8%, n = 3). All fresh vegetable samples have shown unlike carbaryl contamination for a certain time interval. The results were clearly designated that the residue quantities of the inspected pesticide does not cross the established maximum residue limits (MRLs).

Keywords

• UPLC
• Mass spectrometry
• Carbaryl
• Fresh vegetables
• Determination