Aplicação das técnicas QuEChERS e MISPE para a determinação cromatográfica de resíduos de organofosforados em morango

Abstract

Pesticides, especially organophosphates, have a great importance in combating and preventing pests, reaching thus a great benefit to the production and ensuring enough food for the population. However, this can be detrimental to human and environment health due to their residues. Thus, the determination of pesticides residues plays an important role in the estimation of exposure to these compounds, allowing production to assess compliance with Good Agricultural Practices, enabling business regulatory decisions aimed at ensuring food security. So, the overall objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of two sample preparation techniques: molecularly imprinted solid phase extraction (MISPE) and dispersive solid phase extraction (QuEChERS), to the isolation and concentration of organophosphate residues of diazinon, disulfoton, parathion, chlorpyrifos and malathion from strawberry for analysis by gas chromatography with flame photometric detector (GC-DFC). It was used a column megabore Phenomenex® ZB-35 (35% phenyl 65% dimethyl siloxane, 30 m x 0.53mm, 0.5 mm), hydrogen as carrier gas at a flow rate of 8.0 ml min-1. Pirimiphos was used as internal standard (0.25 mg g-1). The method presented selectivity and linearity in the range from 0.10 to 1.00 mg g-1 (for diazinon, disulfoton, parathion and chlorpyrifos) and 0.10 to 2.00 mg g-1 (for malathion). The intra and inter-assay precision presented relative standard deviation between 1.55 to 11.75% (QuEChERS) and between 1.15 to 14.10% (MISPE) to low, medium and high levels, the linear range. The efficiency of extraction for the QuEChERS and MISPE techniques was 81.64 to 100.00% and 65.25 to 87.70%, respectively. The detectability in both methods was satisfactory, since it attended the Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) established for the analytes. The methods showed robustness, according to the Youden test. The MISPE technique proved to be inexpensive and simple to implement and is quite tough, since the sorbent synthesized supports extreme conditions of pH and temperature and in just a cartridge could be made 50 to 80 extractions, showing great potential in food analysis. The QuEChERS technique is simple and fast, compared to MISPE, especially in relation to clean up step that does not use cartridges or vacuum systems, which enable all tests are done in a single analytical run. The results obtained suggest that the methods are useful for organophosphate residues monitoring in strawberry samples, since meet all of the requirements for the evaluation of residues in food, aiming consumers’ safety.