Simultaneous determination of penflufen and one metabolite in vegetables and cereals using a modified quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe method and liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry

The present study attempts to investigate a rapid, effective and sensitive analytical method to determine a new fungicide penflufen and its metabolite residues in potato, cowpea, corn, wheat and rice using ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS). The compounds were extracted using acetonitrile and cleaned up by primary secondary amine (PSA) and octadecylsilane (C18). Both compounds were determined in less than 5.0 min using an electrospray ionization source in positive mode (ESI+). The calculated limits of detection and quantification were below 0.018 μg kg−1 and 0.060 μg kg−1 in different matrices. The method revealed excellent linearity (R2 > 0.9957) for both compounds. The recoveries ranged from 76.1 to 101.0% for both compounds with RSD values lower than 9.8% in all matrices. The results demonstrated that the method is reliable and effective enough for the routine detecting penflufen and its metabolite residues in vegetables and cereals.