Pesticide Residue Analysis and Safety

Pesticide residue analysis examines the trace amounts of agricultural chemicals that remain in food after cultivation, with the goal of determining whether those levels pose a risk to human health. Liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry has become the workhorse technique for this work, enabling laboratories to detect and quantify hundreds of compounds simultaneously in a single run using approaches like QuEChERS, a rapid sample preparation method designed for complex food matrices. A persistent challenge is the matrix effect—the way proteins, lipids, and pigments in real food samples can suppress or enhance a pesticide's measured signal, which complicates accurate quantification and demands rigorous method validation before results can be trusted. Active research is pushing toward faster, more sensitive high-throughput workflows that can keep pace with the sheer diversity of pesticides in use and the wide variety of foods that regulatory agencies must screen.

Works

64,153

Total citations

632,701

Keywords

Pesticide ResiduesLiquid ChromatographyMass SpectrometryMultiresidue MethodQuEChERSMatrix Effects