Determination of pesticides in fatty matrices using gel permeation clean-up followed by GC-MS/MS and LC-MS/MS analysis: A comparison of low- and high-pressure gel permeation columns

Two low-pressure columns (Bio-Beads SX-3) and three high-pressure GPC columns were compared for clean-up of a wide range of pesticides in fatty matrices of vegetable or animal origin. The GPC fractions were analyzed by GC-MS/MS and LC-MS/MS without additional clean-up. The performance of the GPC clean-up on the five column types was compared in terms of solvent consumption, lipid removal, pesticide recovery and repeatability. It was found that for fatty matrices, mainly consisting of high molecular weight triglycerides i.e. most vegetable oils and animal fats, good fractionation is obtained for the majority of the pesticides. On the other hand, for fats and oils containing relatively high amounts of low molecular weight triglycerides, i.e. butter fat and palm kernel oil, none of the columns provided sufficient clean-up and cause interferences and system contamination, especially in the case of GC-MS/MS analysis. For the latter case, best results in terms of lipid removal and pesticide recovery were obtained on a set (2x300 mm length) of narrow bore (7.5 mm ID) columns packed with 5 mu m PL Gel material. Column loadability is, however, much lower on that set of columns compared the other evaluated GPC columns, impairing overall method sensitivity.