Method development and validation of ten pyrethroid insecticides in edible mushrooms by Modified QuEChERS and gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

A method for simultaneous determination of ten pyrethroid insecticides residues in edible mushrooms was developed. The samples were pretreated by a quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged (QuEChERS) method. The ten pyrethroid insecticides were extracted from six kinds of edible mushrooms using acetonitrile and subsequently cleaned up by octadecylsilane (C18) or primary secondary amine (PSA). Instrumental analysis was completed in 16 min using gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS). The overall average recoveries in the six kinds of edible mushrooms at three levels (10, 100 and 1000 μg kg(−1)) ranged from 72.8% to 103.6%. The intraday and interday relative standard deviations (RSD) were lower than 13.0%. The quantification limits were below 5.57 μg kg(−1) in different matrices. The results demonstrated that the method is convenient for the quick detection of pyrethroid insecticides in edible mushrooms.