Determination of Pesticides Residues in Eggplant and Tomatoes from Central Marked in Khartoum State Using Quechers Method and Gas Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

Pesticides are widely used in food production to increase food security, but they can have negative health effects on consumers. Both raw and processed vegetables have been found to be contaminated with pesticide residues. Consumers can be exposure to pesticides via food consumption. In this paper, we present the investigation of 30 pesticides in total of 90 samples of tomatoes and 27 samples of eggplant from central markets in Khartoum state using the quick easy cheap effective rugged and safe (QuEChERS) multi-residue extraction, followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Pesticide residues were not detected in 9 samples (8%), while 108 samples (92%) contained detectable amount of pesticide residues. The percentage of contaminated vegetable samples was high for both tomatoes (91.2%) and eggplant (96.3%). Multiple pesticides residues were detected on 65samples with percentage of (55.6%) from total analyzed samples. Multiple residues with four pesticides were present in two samples of tomatoes. Sixteen pesticides chloropyrifos, diazinon, cypermethrin, deltamethrin, omethoate, lamdacyhalothrin, dimethoate, fenvlarate, fenpropathrin, pendimethalin, endosulfan, imidacloprid, carbaryl, permethrin, malathion and profenofos were detected in the analyzed vegetable samples with concentration range between 0.008-1.882 mg/kg and mean range between 0.0225- 0.8631mg/kg. Summer and autumn were the most seasons contaminated with pesticides residues. It is concluded that the continuous monitoring and strict regulation of pesticide use on food crops, especially vegetables, are necessary. Keywords: Pesticide residues; Tomatoes; Eggplant; QuEChERS; GC MS; Seasons; Markets; Khartoum