A vortex-assisted dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction followed by UPLC-MS/MS for simultaneous determination of pesticides and aflatoxins in herbal tea

Abstract

A method for detecting the organophosphorus pesticides residue and aflatoxins in China herbal tea has been developed by UPLC-MS/MS coupled with vortex-assisted dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (DLLME). The extraction conditions for vortex-assisted DLLME extraction were optimized using single-factor experiments and response surface design. The optimum conditions for the experiment were the pH 5.1, 347 µL of chloroform (extraction solvent) and 1614 µL of acetonitrile (dispersive solvent). Under the optimum conditions, the targets were good linearity in the range of 0.1 µg/L–25 µg/L and the correlation coefficient above 0.9998. The mean recoveries of all analytes were in the ranged from 70.06%–115.65% with RSDs below 8.54%. The detection limits were in the range of 0.001 µg/L–0.01µg/L. The proposed method is a fast and effective sample preparation with good enrichment and extraction efficiency, which can simultaneously detect pesticides and aflatoxins in China herbal tea.