Acid-treated ZIF-67-derived porous carbon based QuEChERS coupled with LC-MS/MS for sensitive determination of multi-pesticide residues

Simple and convenient synthesis of a purification material of CZIFA. • Enhanced purification performance of CZIFA by acid treatment strategy. • Analysis and detection of pesticide residues in complex matrices. • Expanded application of ZIF-derived carbon materials in food safety detection. Porous carbon-based QuEChERS purification material (CZIFA) was synthesized through a straightforward calcination and acid treatment process using Zeolitic Imidazolate Framework-67 (ZIF-67) as the precursor. The abundant adsorption sites and excellent clean-up capability of CZIFA resulting from acid treatment were confirmed through a series of characterization and performance evaluations. Combined with LC-MS/MS, a modified QuEChERS method using CZIFA as the adsorbent was developed for the simultaneous detection of 48 pesticide residues in tobacco. Under optimized conditions, the established method achieved low limits of detection (0.02–9.92 μg/kg), wide linear ranges (2–200 μg/L), and satisfactory precision. The average recoveries of the method were in the range of 80.1–119.7% with the relative standard deviations (RSDs) of <9.5%. This study provides a novel and efficient functionalized material for analyzing pesticide residues in complex matrices. Especially, it expands the application of ZIF-derived carbon materials in food safety detection. Download: Download high-res image (298KB) Download: Download full-size image