Pesticide Residues Analysis in Iranian Fruits and Vegetables by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

Pesticide residues in fruits and vegetables are one of the highest concerns of consumers who need food safety. in this study, forty-eight pesticide residues from different chemical structures including organochlorine, organophosphorus, organonitrogen, dicarboximides, strobilurin, triazine, pyrethroids, and other chemical groups. in 85 fruits and vegetables were determined and confirmed by gc-ms. the pesticide was extracted with ethyl-acetate, then, the extracts cleaned using high performance gel permeation column chromatography (gpc) and solid phase column (spe). the mean recoveries of the pesticides were between 81 and 136%. the reproducibility of the relative standard deviation values was 2.1% and 14.8%. pesticide residues were more frequently found in vegetables (65.5%) than in fruits (26.7%). the limits of detection and quantification of pesticide residues for the method were ranged from 0.003 to 0.06 μg/g and between 0.01 to 0.1 μg/g respectively. the analyzed samples did not contain residues from the monitored pesticides that were higher than the accepted maximum residue limits (mrls) as adapted by the fao/who codex alimentarius commission.