Determination of 24 Pesticide Residues in Red Wine Using a QuEChERS Sample Preparation Approach and LC-MS/MS Detection

This application presents a fast, easy, and cost-effective method for the determination of 24 pesticide residues in red wine. Sample preparation involves the extraction of pesticides from red wine using the QuEChERS extraction method (AOAC version). The samples then undergo cleanup by dispersive solid-phase extraction (dSPE) using primary secondary amine (PSA) sorbent, which effectively retains organic acids, sugars, and phenolic pigments. A higher quantity of PSA than normally used in the dSPE step is required to sufficiently remove co-extracted phenolic compounds from red wine. The purified extract is subsequently separated using a solid core column prior to detection by a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer. The developed method was applied to commercially available red wine samples to test its applicability. Six out of the fourteen samples tested were found to contain pesticide residues at trace levels. (e.g. anthocyanins, flavonols, and tannins). Traditional sample preparation methods for red wine include liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) with different organic solvents, solid-phase extraction (SPE) with reversed-phase C18 or polymeric sorbents, solid-phase microextraction (SPME), and stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE). However, these traditional methods have their own limitations, such as being labor intensive, costly (e.g. need for expensive glassware and solvents), using large quantities of organic solvent (environmental impact and disposal costs), requiring extensive method development and optimization, and possibly suffering from a lack of reproducibility or accuracy.