Development of a method Sin-QuEChERS for the determination of multiple pesticide residues in oilseed samples

The determination of pesticide residues in oilseeds is a formidable challenge because compound pesticides are widely used in farming oilseeds. In this work, a novel method named Sin-QuEChERS (single-step, cheap, effective, rugged, safe) was established for the analysis of multiple pesticide residues in oil-bearing crop samples (rapeseed, peanut, sesame and melon seeds), based on the improvement of QuEChERS (quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe) approach. In the Sin-QuEChERS method, acetonitrile was used for sample extraction and primary-secondary amine (PSA) using C18 cartridge as purification media. By using Sin-QuEChERS, 38 pesticide residues in 4 oilseeds were detected by high performance liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) within 5 min. and the correlation coefficient was more than 0.99. The average recoveries were 80.2 to 99.8%, and the relative standard deviation was less than 15%. Application of Sin-QuEChERS to monitor the pesticide residues of 100 batches of oilseeds showed that the established method was high throughput, accurate, sensitive, and reliable, and the limited detection ranged from 0.006 to 0.054 mg/kg.