Simultaneous determination of multi-class pesticide residues in solanaceous vegetables and selected fruits using LC-MS/MS and potential impact on consumer health with measurement uncertainty

The present study developed and validated the liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectroscopy (LC-MS/MS) based highly sensitive, rapid and reproducible analytical method for estimating trace level residue of 39 major multiclass pesticides. A total of 480 samples of solanaceous crops (chilli, bell pepper, tomato and brinjal) and 240 from fruit crops (pomegranate and grapes) were collected from local markets of Kalyana Karnataka region for the study. The results indicated, the developed method was linear and showed excellent correlation coefficient (R ² ) of 0.998–0.999 in solvent and 0.993–0.999 in all the matrices analyzed. No significant matrix effect was observed for all pesticides in different matrices and within the range of ± 20%. The recovery percentage at all three levels (0.01, 0.05 and 0.1 mg/kg) ranged from 71.28-113.98% with a relative standard deviation of less than 10% for all the matrices evaluated. Measurement uncertainty values estimated at 50 µg/kg spiking level were found lower than 14 µg/kg for all tested pesticides in different matrices. Occurrence of 17 pesticides in all the tested vegetable and fruits samples which include 11 insecticides and 6 fungicides. Imidacloprid, carbendazim, acephate, profenofos, chlorantraniliprole, dimethoate, and difenoconazole were the commonly detected pesticides with 81.67, 76.67, 30.83, 21.67, 43.33 and 86.67% contamination in green chilli, bell pepper, tomato, brinjal, pomegranate and grapes, respectively. The dietary health risk assessment revealed safe for both adults and children as the hazard quotient (HQ) and hazard index (HI) values were less than 1 and would not cause any hazardous risk upon consumption.