Ozone as a Safety Post-Harvest Treatment for Chlorpyrifos Removal from Vegetables and its Effects on Vegetable Quality

The removal of chlorpyrifos pesticide residues from vegetables was achieved by using low level of ozonated water (OZW) for 15 60 min as contact times at 25 and 35oC. Recovered amount of chlorpyrifos was extracted using solid phase extraction (SPE) and then analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The initial levels of residual chlorpyrifos varied with the kind of vegetables, where arugula had the highest level followed by parsley, leek, tomato, carrot, cucumber, cabbage, and then bell pepper. When vegetables washed in OZW was at 25 oC, the percentages of chlorpyrifos removal were time-dependent and ranged from 30 83, 91 97, 80 92, 92 95, 87 97, 95 97, 64 100 and 90 97% for bell pepper, tomato, cucumber, carrot, arugula, parsley, cabbage and leek, respectively. In case of vegetables washed with OZW at 35oC, increasing of the contact time was not significantly effect on the removal percentages of chlorpyrifos except with arugula and cabbage. Likewise, the increasing of OZW temperature caused a negative consequence on the removal percentages of pesticide. The effect of these wash treatments on vegetable quality parameters indicated that the removing of chlorpyrifos by using OZW did not produce any significant undesirable effects on antioxidant capacity, total phenolic contents and vitamin C of the tested vegetables. Due to the large amount of vegetables consumed in fresh form, a higher risk of exposure to chlorpyrifos may occur and the search for a safety method to remove this pesticide with negligible residual deposits has always been preferred. Therefore, the present study validated that ozone technology as wash treatment is safe and promising processes for the removal of chlorpyrifos from the vegetable’s surface under domestic conditions to reduce the impact over consumer’s health. *Corresponding author: Khaled, A. O, Department of Pesticide Chemistry & Technology, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt; Tel.: +2035901900; Fax: +2035922780; E-mail: [email protected] Received Date: January 23, 2017 Accepted Date: February 27, 2017 Published Date: April 04, 2017