HRMS analysis of pesticides in vegetables from Shanghai and risk assessment

ABSTRACT

A rapid analytical method for the simultaneous determination of 550 pesticide residues in vegetable samples was developed based on ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem Q/Orbitrap high-resolution mass spectrometry (UPLC-Q/Orbitrap-HRMS). To investigate the risk of exposure to pesticide residues through vegetable consumption, 704 leafy vegetable samples from Shanghai were analysed for multiple residues using this method. A total of 54 pesticide residues were identified in these vegetable samples and 302 samples contained one or more pesticide residue. The levels of the detected pesticides did not pose a health risk in the long term and were acceptable according to the results of the chronic dietary risk assessment. Risk rankings displayed that most of the pesticides were low to medium risk. The findings of this study provide a reference for future pesticide monitoring programmes.

KEYWORDS:

• Leafy vegetables
• pesticides
• dietary risk assessment
• UPLC-Q/Orbitrap-HRMS

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/19393210.2023.2280967

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Chuying Project from Institute for Agi-food standards and Testing Technology, Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences (Chuying 2022-1-2).