Multiresidue pesticides analysis in food matrices Application note

Pesticides are vital to the success of crop production. Regulatory agencies have set maximum residue levels (MRLs) for hundreds of pesticides and their metabolites in foods.

Most MRLs are set at low part per billion (ppb) levels, posing signi cant challenges to simultaneously screen and quantify hundreds of analytes in complex food matrices.

Here, we demonstrate screening and quantitation for 246 pesticides and metabolites using an Agilent Ultivo Triple Quadrupole LC/MS. The Ultivo is designed to address many challenges faced by routine production labs, especially in environmental and food safety arenas. Innovative technologies within Ultivo allowed us to reduce its overall footprint, while maintaining the performance levels of much larger MS systems.

Innovations, such as VacShield, Cyclone Ion Guide, Vortex Collision Cell, and the Hyperbolic Quads, not only maximize quantitative performance in a small package, but also enhance instrument reliability and robustness, promoting greater uptime. Ultivo reduces user intervention for system maintenance, making system operation and maintenance manageable for nonexpert MS users. Agilent MassHunter Software simpli es data acquisition, method setup, data analysis, and reporting, resulting in the fastest possible acquisition-to-reporting time, thereby increasing lab productivity.