Smart Pesticides Database
Food Safety First: Shimadzu’s FAMEs And Pesticide Analysis Solutions
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In this latest session of Digital Classrooms, discover how Shimadzu’s innovative solutions are transforming food analysis. Learn how AOC-6000 Plus enables automated GCMS workflows for FAME analysis and automated LCMS workflows for pesticide analysis. Plus, explore Peakintelligence software—a world-first AI-assisted algorithm that simplifies chromatography peak detection and accelerates data analysis for a streamlined workflow. Take the next step towards faster, smarter, and simpler food testing. Register now to unlock your laboratory’s full potential! |
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Webinar Objectives:
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Advanced Laboratory Workflows
Discover the latest advancements in Shimadzu’s AI and automation solutions.
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Enhanced Efficiency
Learn how advanced workflows can enhance laboratory throughput and operational efficiency.
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Practical Applications
Explore with us as we showcase how to analyze FAME and pesticides in different matrices.
How Automation Is Transforming Food Safety And Quality Control
As the global food supply chain grows more complex, food safety labs face mounting pressure to deliver faster, more accurate results. Automation has hence become increasingly essential, streamlining workflows, reducing human error, and significantly boosting testing capacity. By automating repetitive tasks, laboratories can handle higher sample volumes with precision and efficiency, meeting the demands of high-throughput environments.
For high-volume commercial labs, automation is no longer optional—it is a necessity. It enables laboratories to scale up, maintain accuracy, and meet rigorous food safety standards even in the face of today’s fast-changing landscape.
Enabling Automation In Food Analysis
With the increasing complexity of the global food supply chain, quality control has become significantly challenging, thus putting food safety in the spotlight. As it becomes ever more crucial to perform efficient quality control, automated solutions have garnered broad interest for they can provide a cost-effective way to obtain robust data with a fast turnaround time.
In this webinar, discover the capabilities when analytical testing meets innovation – learn how Shimadzu drives automation in food analysis, such as Auto-QuEChERS cleanup workflow to analyze residual pesticides in food.
Analysis Of Pesticide Residues For Safety And Quality
Pesticides play a crucial role in modern food production, directly contributing to global food security by protecting crops from harmful pests and diseases. These chemical solutions, including herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, nematicides, and more, are essential for preventing infestations and ensuring optimal crop yields.
While pesticides improve agricultural efficiency, excessive application can lead to pesticide residues on fresh produce. These residues may also spread through wind, water, or manual handling, making it critical to analyze pesticide levels to ensure food safety and protect public health.
Read more by expanding the dropdown or discover a simple and fast analytical method to quantify anionic pesticides in fruits without derivatization in one of Shimadzu's Technology Brief by clicking the button below.
There are harmful health effects associated with high pesticide residue levels on treated food products due to their toxicity in nature.
While certain residues can be gradually washed away, others can persist in our surrounding environments and products for extended periods. Long-lasting pesticides such as organochlorine pesticides, for example, are slower to break down and more resistant to degradation.
As a result, it is crucial for farmers and food distributors to adhere to maximum residue levels (MRLs) to reduce pesticide exposure. This should be done as part of good agricultural practices to protect consumers of various food products and promote a safer food supply. Only through such diligence can we guarantee our food quality and safeguard human health.
Importance Of Pesticide Residue Analysis
Pesticide residue testing and analysis are conducted in the laboratory to identify and quantify the presence of pesticide residues in food samples. They are an integral component of the food manufacturing process as they ensure the quality and safety of food products for consumption and international trade.
Moreover, these processes also serve to mitigate the environmental risks associated with excessive pesticide use – in accordance with guidelines set by regulatory agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
How Pesticide Residue Is Tested And Analyzed
Testing pesticide residues requires a sample matrix to first be prepared. Consequently, the sample material has to be isolated so that the substance of interest can be precisely analyzed.
At this stage, common sample preparation methods such as QuEChERS (Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged and Safe) can be used to extract and clean up analytes for subsequent analysis. Following this, analytical techniques such as high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS), and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) are employed in determining pesticide residues.
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QuEChERS Extraction And Automated μSPE Clean-up
Gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC-MS) is an indispensable equipment for the analysis of residual pesticides. A solvent extraction is commonly used for pretreatment of these residual compounds in complex matrix such as foods and soils. As the residues tend to be present at a very low concentration, proper extraction and clean-up steps is required to ensure the removal of non-specific interferences while providing good recovery to the analytes of interest. As a result, the signals produced by the target analytes could be enhanced for easier identification and quantitation.
QuEChERS has been a popular extraction cum cleanup method for various chemical residues. The name is an acronym to its features: Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged, and Simple. While the resultant extracts are amenable to dispersive SPE clean-up, they tend to be dirty and less ideal for GC-based analysis. Therefore, a good SPE would be critical to effectively raise the concentration for sensitivity reasons against common co-extractants such as proteins, sugars, fats, and colourings. This will also prolong the lifetime of consumables (e.g. glass inserts, analytical columns) and in turn improve the instrument and method robustness.
In this work, we used the GC-MS/MS with a QuEChERS extraction and automated μSPE clean-up to rapidly measure pesticides in cabbage with high performance. A ready-to-use method package was used for it comes with pre-optimized analytical parameters, recommended certified standard substances, pretreatment protocol, and various consumables.
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Analytical Method To Quantify Anionic Pesticides
Due to the physicochemical properties of polar anionic pesticides such as glyphosate and ethephon, the standard reversed-phase analytical method is not applicable due to the poor retention of the analytes. The presence of multiple pKa values due to multivalency further complicates the analysis with possible surface interaction.
Multiple single residue methods are often adopted to analyze these groups of compounds, in some cases including the use of pre- or post-column derivatization or ion-pairing. Thus, there is a need to reduce the number of separation methods and simplify the sample treatment.
In view of the challenges mentioned, Shimadzu has developed a streamlined analytical workflow solution without the need for compound derivatization to quantify anionic pesticides in complex matrices.
Overall, our case study showcases that a small injection volume of 5 µL demonstrates good sensitivity achieved with a quantitation limit of 0.5 ppb for both glyphosate and ethephon in the matrix.
FAME Derivatization
Fatty acids, the building blocks of lipids, are essential for energy metabolism and nutrition. In the food industry, fatty acid analysis is crucial for improving the quality and functionality of food products during development.
Due to the presence of carboxyl groups, fatty acids are difficult to measure directly using GC-MS(/MS) systems. To overcome this, they are converted into fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) through methylation. FAMEs vary in characteristics such as carbon chain length and the number or position of double bonds, which are critical for determining the properties of food lipids.
Traditional derivatization methods, however, can be labor-intensive, time-consuming, and produce significant chemical waste. Shimadzu’s AOC-6000 Plus offers a cutting-edge solution by fully automating the sample preparation process, streamlining fatty acid analysis with greater efficiency and sustainability.
Learn more in the Technology Brief below.