QuEChERS method combined with GC‒MS for pesticide residues determination in water

Abstract

A miniaturized, QuEChERS based, liquid–liquid extraction method followed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry was developed and validated for pesticide residues determination in water. Malathion, chlorpyrifos, profenofos, chlorfenapyr, pyriproxyfen, λ-cyhalothrin, coumaphos and α-cypermethrin were selected for this study. The accuracy, precision, specificity, linearity, limit of detection and limit of quantification were evaluated. The recovery ranged from 85.3 to 107% with RSD ranging from 1.8 to 15.4%. The linearity showed reliable range (0.995–0.999). The limit of detection ranged from 0.3 to 4 μg/L. Matrix effect was evaluated. The obtained results meet the European Commission standard legislations, implying that our method can be considered accurate and reproducible. The validated method was used to analyze river and well water samples. No residues of the investigated pesticides were detected in all collected water samples.