Determination of insecticides in salad vegetables

Agilent Technologies has released a paper outlining the feasibility of liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS) time-of-flight (TOF) in conjunction with LC/MSD ion trap to analyse chloronicotinyl insecticides: acetamiprid, imidacloprid, and thiacloprid, in four salad vegetables: tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and cucumbers.

Included in the report are the LC/MSD TOF and LC/MSD trap spectra of the three chloronicotinyl insecticides, the TOF empirical formula determination, and MS/MS fragmentation and diagnostic ion(s) for the chloronicotinyl insecticides in pure solvent, and in the matrices of all four salad vegetables.

Also included is a detailed procedure for sample preparation and recovery of the insecticides from the salad vegetables, spectral quality at minimum detection level (MDL), linearity and quantitation of the insecticides in pure solvent and in the four vegetable extracts for TOF and Trap. Results of the analysis of real samples from the marketplace or these insecticides in the salad vegetables are also presented.