Simplifying Food Sample Preparation for Pesticide Analysis

Agilent Technologies, Inc introduced SampliQ QuEChERS kits that simplify sample preparation for analysing pesticide residues in fruits, vegetables and processed food products. ‘QuEChERS’, developed by USDA scientists in 2003, stands for ‘Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged and Safe’. Agilent’s SampliQ QuEChERS Kits make these methods even faster and easier with premeasured reagents designed for specific food sample types and screening protocols. These include extraction kits and dispersive solid phase extraction (SPE) clean-up kits. Agilent provides kits for the original non-buffered QuEChERS method, European standard (EN 15662) method and a standard recognised by the Association of Analytical Communities (AOAC 2007.01).

Unlike the alternatives, Agilent SampliQ QuEChERS extraction kits, used in the protocol’s first step, contain pre-weighed salts in anhydrous packets. Users can now add the salts after adding organic solvent to the sample, avoiding exothermic reactions that might compromise analyte recovery. There is one extraction kit each for AOAC and EN methods, two for non-buffered extraction and one for acrylamide analysis. Agilent currently offers 16 dispersive SPE kits for specific sample types and for the various QuEChERS methods. For both the AOAC and EN methods, Agilent offers kits for: general fruits and vegetables, fruits and vegetables with fats and waxes, and pigmented fruits and vegetables. There are also two kits for highly pigmented fruits and vegetables using the EN method, and two kits for the AOAC method for fruits and vegetables with pigments and fats.

For labs preferring to pack their own tubes, Agilent also offers bulk salts and sorbents. Agilent QuEChERS kits are part of the Agilent SampliQ family of SPE products, manufactured to strict ISO-9001
standards. This includes a wide selection of polymer, silica and other sorbents in formats ranging from multiple cartridge sizes to 96-well plates. Agilent also offers a complete range of vacuum manifolds
and accessories.