Determination of flumetsulam residues in 20 kinds of plant-derived foods by ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry

Abstract

A modified quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe (QuEChERS) method for the simultaneous quantitative determination of flumetsulam in 20 kinds of complicated plant-derived food grains (rice, wheat, and corn), vegetables (cabbage, celery, tomato, kidney bean, eggplant, potato, radish and leek), fruits (apple, peach, grape and orange), edible mushroom (mushroom), tea (green tea), nuts (almond), oil crops (soybean) and edible oil (peanut oil) was developed and validated using ultra-performance LC coupled with MS/MS. Acetonitrile was the extraction solvent and simultaneous liquid–liquid partitioning was formed by adding anhydrous magnesium sulfate (MgSO₄) and sodium chloride (NaCl). The extract was then cleaned up by dispersive-SPE using graphitized carbon black (GCB), almond and peanut oil using Cleanert Florisil, as selective sorbents. The determination of the target compound was achieved in less than 6.0 min using an electrospray ionization source in positive mode (ESI+). Quantification was performed by calibration curves of standards from 0.01–1.0 mg L⁻¹ with r² = 0.999. Further optimization of sample preparation and determination achieved recoveries between 73.85% and 115.76% for all analytes with RSD values lower than 10% in 20 kinds of plant-derived foods at three levels (10, 50 and 100 μg kg⁻¹).