Effect of processing on the reduction of pesticide residues in a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)

ABSTRACT

The behaviour of residues of tebuconazole, prochloraz, and abamectin in rehmannia during rehmannia decoction processing was systemically assessed. The pesticides were determined by ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) after each processing step including washing, steaming and drying, carbonising, and boiling. Results showed that the pesticide residues significantly decreased after the steps of washing, carbonising, and boiling. Washing reduced pesticide residues by 41.2%–60.0%; carbonising reduced pesticides by 27.1%–71.1% in both prepared rehmannia and unprepared rehmannia. After boiling, the concentrations of tebuconazole and prochloraz were 0.0002–0.0022 mg kg⁻¹ in decoctions. Abamectin was not detected in rehmannia after carbonising, and it was not detected in decoctions either. The processing factors (PFs) were less than 1 during food processing, indicating that the full set of processing can reduce the residues of tebuconazole, prochloraz, and abamectin in rehmannia decoction.

KEYWORDS:

• Rehmannia
• tebuconazole
• prochloraz
• abamectin
• pesticide residue
• processing factor

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the National Key Research and Development Project (2017YFC1702800) and the Major Science and Technology Projects in Henan Province (171100310500).