Determination of Ethephon Residue in Fruits and Vegetables by QuEChERS/High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry

KeyWord:QuEChERS  ethephon  HPLC-MS/MS

Abstract:

      A new method was developed for the detection of ethephon residue in fruits and vegetables by QuEChERS/high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.The samples were extracted with water£¬and cleaned up with PSA and GCB.As the chromatography and MS conditions were optimized£¬the analysis of the target compound was performed under electrospray positive ion source and multiple reaction monitoring mode£¨MRM£©£¬and the quantitation was carried out by the external standard method with the blank matrix.The calibration curve was linear in the range of 0.5-50 mg/L with a correlation coefficient not less than 0.995.The recoveries of ethephon in cucumber£¬tomato£¬pepper£¬apple and banana matrices at three spiked levels of 2.5£¬5.0£¬10.0 mg/kg ranged from 80.5% to 92.7%£¬and the relative standard deviations were in the range of 3.1%-8.3%.The method is simple£¬fast and safety£¬and is suitable for the confirmation and quantification of ethephon residue in fruits and vegetables£®