Efficiency of home water filters on pesticide removal from drinking water.

Water pollution via natural and anthropogenic activities has become a global problem, which can lead to short and long-term impacts on humans' health and the ecosystems. Substantial amounts of individual or mixtures of organic pollutants move into the surface water via point and non-point source contamination. Some of these compounds are known to be toxic and difficult to remove from water sources, thus affecting their quality.

Evaluation of an alternative sorbent for passive sampling of the herbicides 2,4-D and Dicamba in the air.

The present study aimed to evaluate the Strata-X sorbent, commonly used in cartridges, through analysis by high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry. Due to the different physical-chemical characteristics of the compounds, different conditions of chromatography and mass analysis were necessary. The developed methods were validated in terms of selectivity, linear range, linearity (coefficient of determination, r), the limit of detection (LOD), the limit of quantification (LOQ), accuracy (recovery, %), and precision (RSD, %).

Miniaturized QuEChERS method for determination of 97 pesticide residues in wine by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry.

A miniaturized sample preparation method was developed and validated for the multiresidue determination of 97 pesticides in wine samples. The proposed extraction procedure is based on the QuEChERS acetate method with dispersive solid phase extraction (d-SPE) for the clean-up step. Ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) was used for determination.

Balls-in-tube matrix solid phase dispersion (BiT-MSPD): An innovative and simplified technique for multiresidue determination of pesticides in fruit samples.

Sample preparation of complex matrices, like food samples, continues to be a challenge demanding great effort for improvements. In this study, a new technique named balls-in-tube matrix solid-phase dispersion (BiT-MSPD) is proposed based on a simplification of the conventional MSPD technique being all sample preparation performed directly in a closed extraction tube with the assistance of steel balls. An innovative method using BiT-MSPD was successfully established for the determination of 133 pesticide residues in apple, peach, pear and plum by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS).