Determination of herbicide residues in olive oil by gas chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry

This paper reports a method for the analysis in olive oil of multiresidues of the herbicides of low-medium polarity most widely used by Andalusian olive growers. The method, which uses gas chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (GC–MS/MS), was developed within the framework of Project CAO00-005, which spanned the period from 2000 to 2004. The results obtained for more than 3000 samples of virgin olive oil and organic olive oil analyzed over such a period are reported. Samples were extracted with an acetonitrile/n-hexane mixture and cleaned up by passage through Florisil columns prior to analysis. A linear determination range for the herbicides from 1 to 500 μg kg−1 and a correlation coefficient better than 0.996 were achieved. The reproducibility, as relative standard deviation, was quite acceptable (8–11%), and so were herbicide recoveries (90–102%). The proposed method has been transferred to both public and private laboratories in the Andalusian region.