High-Throughput Analytical Techniques for Determination of Residues of 653 Multiclass Pesticides and Chemical Pollutants in Tea, Part II: Comparative Study of Extraction Efficiencies of Three Sample Preparation Techniques

Abstract

Abstract This paper reports a study of the extraction efficiency for the multiresidue pesticides and chemical pollutants in tea with three methods over three stages. Method 1 adopts the Pang et al. approach: the targets were extracted with 1% acetic acid in acetonitrile and cleaned up with a Cleanert TPT SPE cartridge; Method 2 adopts the QuEChERS approach: the targets were cleaned up dispersively with graphitized carbon and primary-secondary amine (PSA) sorbent; Method 3 adopts the relatively commonly used approach of hydration for solid samples, with tea hydrated before being extracted through salting out with acetonitrile and the cleanup procedures identical to those of Method 1. The three stages comprised two phases of comparative tests on spike recoveries of 201 pesticides and chemical pollutants from different teas and a third phase on determination of the content of the 201 pesticides and chemical pollutants from aged tea samples. In stages I and II, test results of the spike recoveries of 201 pesticides and chemical pollutants demonstrated that 91.4% of the pesticide and chemical pollutant recoveries fell within the range of 70–110%, and 93.2% of the pesticides and chemical pollutants had RSD < 15%, with no marked difference obtained by Method 1 and Method 2 regardless of whether it was green tea or woolong tea, or GC/MS or GC/MS/MS was used for analysis. For pigment removal, Method 1 was superior to Method 2; in terms of easy operation, Method 2 outweighed Method 1. However, Method 3 obtained relatively low recoveries, with 94% of pesticide and chemical pollutant recoveries less than 70%, which proved that Method 3 was not applicable to the determination of multiresidue pesticides and chemical pollutants in tea. Stage III made a comparison of Method 1 and Method 2 for the extraction efficiency of pesticides and chemical pollutants in 165-day-aged samples of green and woolong tea. Test results showed that 94% of the pesticide and chemical pollutant content in the aged tea samples was recovered with Method 1, more than 10% higher than with Method 2 (30–50% higher on average). For green tea, 193 (GC/MS/MS) and 197 (GC/MS) pesticides and chemical pollutants accounted for 96.5% (GC/MS/MS) and 98.0% (GC/MS) with Method 1 higher than with Method 2. For woolong tea, 191 (GC/MS/MS) and 194 (GC/MS) pesticides and chemical pollutants accounted for 95% (GC/MS/MS) and 96% (GC/MS/MS) with Method 1, higher than with Method 2, respectively. In other words, there were definite differences in the test results for aged tea samples between Method 1 and Method 2, which suggests that Method 1 was capable of extracting more residual pesticides and chemical pollutants from the precipitated 165-day-aged tea samples. The reason can be traced to the possibility that Method 1 (high-speed homogenizing) has better extraction efficiency than Method 2 (vortex and oscillation). Therefore, Method 1 was chosen as the sample preparation technique for multiresidue pesticide and chemical pollutant analysis in tea.