Detection of most commonly used pesticides in green leafy vegetables from sagar, india using direct injection hybrid micellar liquid chromatography

Imidacloprid, chlorpyrifos, profenofos and cypermethrin are most commonly applied pesticides on green leafy vegetables. After a survey conducted to know the pesticide management practices in Sagar, India, a procedure based on hybrid micellar liquid chromatography coupled to a photodiode array detector has been developed and validated to monitor imidacloprid, chlorpyrifos, profenofos and cypermethrin content in green leafy vegetables. The method was validated following the guideline of SANTE/11,312/2021 in terms of: selectivity, linearity (r2> 0.998), limit of quantification (0.09–0.25 mg/Kg, depending on the analyte under investigation), precision (<8.1%), and robustness (<5%). Chlorpyrifos was found to be the most commonly used pesticide among vegetable growers. It was found in seventy-six percent samples, profenofos in fifty-one percent, imidacloprid in eight percent and cypermethrin in four percent of the analyzed green leafy vegetable sample either individually or in combination. Sixteen percent of the collected samples were found to be negative for the selected pesticides. The developed procedure is rapid, easy to handle, green since it uses a low amount of toxic chemicals providing reliable results. The method was used to evaluate the eventual correlation between the analytical data and the information collected from the producers and users of these pesticides.