Determination of quaternary ammonium compound residues in fruits and vegetables by QuEChERS following LC-MS/MS analysis
Julia Hepperle, Eberhard Schüle, Diana Kolberg, and Ellen Scherbaum
EU-Reference Laboratory for Pesticides Requiring Single Residue Methods (EURL-SRM) hosted at Chemisches und Veterinäruntersuchungsamt Stuttgart, Schaflandstraße 3/2, 70736 Fellbach, Germany
In Aspects of food control and animal health 01 (2013) 1-15 (open access)
ISSN 2196-3460
Abstract
A simple and fast method to determine residues of quaternary ammonium compounds (QAC) in fruit and vegetable samples is presented. The analytes were extracted applying the frequently used QuEChERS method. Analysis was performed by liquid chromatography-electrospray tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS) in the positive mode using a triple quadrupole instrument. The method was validated for the following representative matrices: cucumber (high water content), raisin (high sugar content), lemon (sour) and wheat (dry) at 0.1 mg kg-1 level. The method validation resulted in satisfying recoveries and relative standard deviations (RSDs) for all QAC. In cucumber, raisin, lemon and wheat matrices, recoveries ranged between 88 and 104% and RSDs ranged between 1.1 and 9.8%. All analytes were regularly detected at very low level (<0.005 mg kg-1) in blank sample material and even when only solvent was injected. Therefore, the reporting limit was set to 10 µg kg-1. Our results demonstrate that determining QAC can easily be integrated in routinely conducted QuEChERS extraction followed by LC-MS/MS analysis. In a final step we proved the method’s performance analyzing conventional and organic grown samples from the common market.
Last modified 18-02-2026, 14:29:24
Published 17-02-2026, 16:58:26
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