Determination of Pindone in Agricultural Products by LC-MS/MS

A sensitive and selective analytical method for the determination of pindone in agricultural products by LC-MS/MS was developed. Pindone was extracted with acetone, and an aliquot of the crude extract was re-extracted with hexane. For lipid-rich samples, the crude extract was further cleaned up by acetonitrile-hexane partitioning. The extract was cleaned up on a tandem graphitized carbon-silica gel column. For brown rice, soybean, and tea, PSA column cleanup was added prior to LC-MS/MS determination. Average recoveries of pindone from brown rice, soybean, potato, spinach, cabbage, apple, orange, tomato, cucumber, and tea fortified at 0.001 mg/kg were 81-93%, and the relative standard deviations were 2-7%. The limit of quantitation (S/N >= 10) of the developed method was 0.001 mg/kg for all the tested agricultural products.