The analysis of pesticides in fruit and vegetables is very important in the field of food safety. To ensure levels of toxic pesticides are below tolerance levels and are safe to ingest, routine and comprehensive testing must be performed.

The QuEChERS (quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged and safe) method is used to remove fatty acid components rather than to extract and isolate the pesticides. The advantage of this method is that it is comprehensive, providing very high recoveries for almost all pesticides. The disadvantage of this method is that the resultant sample solutions are relatively “dirty”, and as a result there have been numerous modifications and variations of the original method. Some of the different methods include the use of dispersive tubes or cartridges, and some use graphitized carbon black (GCB) or other additives (like C18).

In this study, Dispersive Pipette XTRaction technology was used for solid phase extraction of pesticides from fruit and vegetables. These tips contain loose or dispersive sorbent material. Simple aspirate and dispense steps are used to mix the sample solution with sorbent inside the tip. The mixing results in increased extraction efficiencies and less sorbent material is required. Extracts and chromatographic analyses were performed using 5 mL XTR tips with Reverse Phase (RP) sorbent.