Determination of multiple pesticides in Eucommia ulmoides followed by gas chromatography mass spectrometry based on a solid-phase extraction method

Eucommia ulmoides , a precious Chinese herbal medicine, lack of studies on the detection of its pesticide residues. A simple sample preparation based on the solid-phase extraction (SPE) procedure was established for the analysis of 16 kinds of pesticides in Eucommia ulmoides by gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC–MS) with selective ion monitoring mode. Here, the type and volume of extraction solvent and eluent, the kinds of sorbents in SPE Cleanert column, were optimized. Under the optimal conditions, a good linear relationship was obtained in the range of 0.005 to 5.0 mg/L with correlation coefficient ( r ) higher than 0.9990, and the average recoveries (AR) of 16 pesticides ranged from 79.6 to 109.2% at the spiking levels of 0.01, 0.1, and 0.5 mg/kg. The relative standard deviations (RSD) were 0.78 to 9.56% ( n = 6). The results show that the established method can not only fully meet the analytical requirements of various pesticides in Eucommia ulmoides , but also have the potential to be applied in the detection of pesticide residues in others Chinese herbal medicine.