Review of SBSE Technique for the Analysis of Pesticide Residues in Fruits and Vegetables

Stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) is a microextraction technique, introduced to overcome the problem of limited extraction capacity and fragile fiber coatings inherent in the solid phase microextraction technique. The major limitations of the SBSE technique are that only polydimethylsiloxane has been commercially available, this reduces its use to non-polar analytes, and its tedious reconstitution step which can lead to loss of analytes and introduction of impurities. The current trend has been aimed at the use of other materials, some of which are commercially available, such as restricted access materials, carbon adsorbents, molecularly imprinted polymers, ionic liquids, microporous monoliths, sol-gel prepared coatings and dual phase material. This has greatly helped in widening the applications of SBSE for pesticide analysis in fruits and vegetables and other matrices. The introduction of a thermal desorption unit which eliminates the reconstitution step of the stir bar in organic solvents before instrumental analysis has helped to automate the extraction method online with gas chromatography. This paper reviews the use of SBSE in pesticide residues analysis in fruits and vegetables, with a view on sample preparation steps, method optimization and validation of analytical figures of merit.