THE IMPACT OF DIFFERENT SOLVENT RATIOS ON THE RECOVERY OF LINDANE IN EGG
I. STOYKOVA1,2*, T. YANKOVSKA-STEFANOVA1, L. YOTOVA2, D. DANALEV2
1 – Central Laboratory of Veterinary Control and Ecology, Bulgarian Food Safety Agency, Sofia 1528, Blvd. Iskarsko Shousse 5
2 – Department of Biotechnology, University of Chemical Technology and Metallurgy, Sofia 1756, Blvd. Kliment Ohridski 8
*Corresponding author: stoykova.iskra@abv.bg
Keywords: extraction, egg samples, pesticides, lindane
Abstract: Pesticides play a key role in pest management in agriculture, public health and medical applications. Unfortunately, this widespread use means residues can be found in a variety of matrices like animal tissue, milk, honey, eggs, etc. Food safety is an integral part of the EU policy, ensuring protection of consumer’s health therefore maximum residue levels of pesticides are defined in specific Regulations.
Analysis of pesticide residues in foods from animal origin includes a wide variety of extraction methods and cleanup steps, followed by the determination generally with chromatographic techniques (Ahn et al., 2006). Extraction of pesticides in egg samples is much more complicated than other samples of animal origin, due to the presence of phospholipids. Therefore the choice of the solvent mixture used for extraction is of great importance for the determination of the fat, which affects the final recovery (Suoza et al., 2008).
Herein, we report the impact of several different solvent mixtures on the recovery of the organochlorine pesticide Lindane, in hen eggs. Various combinations of polar and non-polar solvents were used for extraction by means of Accelerate Solvent Extractor followed by Florisil column as a cleanup step. Gas chromatography with electron-capture detector was used for the quantification of the pesticide content. The obtained results show that a mixture of 20/80 (V/V) polar/non-polar solvent (ethanol/toluene) is the best ratio for both - fat determination and recovery of Lindane.