Effervescence-assisted dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction for the extraction and preconcentration of pesticide residues in fruit juice samples

Background

The widespread use of pesticides for the protection of fruits has resulted in the presence of pesticide residue levels beyond their limit in fruits. This ensures their transfer to processed products, such as juices, posing a threat to human health. Therefore, an efficient and selective method is required for monitoring pesticide residues in fruit juices. Hence, an effervescence-assisted dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction based on surface floating organic droplets was developed for the simultaneous extraction of five pesticide residues of different classes. An environmentally green low-density organic solvent, 1-undecanol, was used as extraction solvent.

Results

The developed method was optimized and validated for quantitative extraction of multiclass pesticide residues at trace levels from fruit juice samples, including apple, pineapple, guava and orange samples. The method showed good linearity in the range of 0.8–300 ng mL⁻¹ for all pesticide residues with a regression coefficient ranging from 0.9979 to 0.9997 under the optimized conditions. The LOD and LOQ of the method ranged between 0.03 and 0.16 ng mL⁻¹ and 0.11–0.52 ng mL⁻¹, respectively, indicating the high sensitivity of the proposed method. Repeatability and reproducibility, in terms of %RSD, were obtained in the range of 1.16–5.50 % and 3.12–7.72 %, respectively.

Significance

The developed method exhibited acceptable mean recoveries (%R) in the range of 73.77–113.34 % with %RSDs (n = 3) ranging from 1.25 to 7.74 % for all the analytes studied. Therefore, the developed method can be used as a selective, sensitive and efficient extraction method for the extraction of multiclass pesticides from fruit juice samples.