Assessment of Cucumber and Paper Contamination by Pesticides Residues in Khartoum State Using Quechers Method and Gas Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

n this paper, we present the investigation of 30 pesticides in total of 138 samples of different fresh cucumber and paper from central markets in Khartoum state using the quick easy cheap effective rugged and safe (QuEChERS) multi-residue extraction, followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Pesticide residues were not detected in 68 samples (49.3%), while 70 samples (50.7%) contained detectable amount of pesticide residues. The percentages of contaminated vegetable samples are 69.4%, 47.2%, 38.9% and 30% for cucumber, sweet paper, green paper and armenian cucumber respectively. Multiple pesticides residues were detected on 6 samples with percentage of (4.3%) from total analyzed samples. Multiple residues with two pesticides were present in 2 and 4 samples of cucumber and sweet paper. Seven pesticides diazinon, cypermethrin, lamdacyhalothrin, dimethoate, pendimethalin, malathion and tetramethrin were detected in the analyzed vegetable samples with concentration range between 0.013-0.652 mg/kg and mean range between 0.0222-0.1927mg/kg of contaminated samples. It is necessary continuous monitoring of pesticide use on vegetables. Summer season was the highly contaminated with pesticides.