Comparison of ultra-performance liquid chromatography and high-performance liquid chromatography for the determination of priority pesticides in baby foods by tandem quadrupole mass spectrometry

Determination of 16 priority pesticides and transformation products specified in the EU Baby Food Directive 2003/13/EC has been compared using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) coupled to tandem quadrupole mass spectrometry (MS/MS). Prior to analysis, co-extractives were removed from acetonitrile extracts using dispersive solid-phase extraction (SPE) with primary secondary amine (50 mg). Extracts spiked with pesticides at 1 μg kg−1 yielded average recoveries in the range 85–119%, with relative standard deviations less than 17%. The HPLC–MS/MS and UPLC–MS/MS multi-residue methods developed are simple, rapid and suitable for the quantification and confirmation of the 16 priority pesticides in fruit-, potato- and cereal-based baby food at 1 μg kg−1. The major advantages of UPLC, using 1.7 μm particles, over HPLC are the speed of analysis, the narrower peaks (giving increased signal-to-noise ratio) and improved confirmation for the targeted pesticides in the analyses of baby foods.