Data Independent Acquisition for Routine Pesticide Screening
The requirement for robust and reliable screening methods for pesticides in food matrices continues to emerge as a point of challenge and necessity. With the ever-growing list of compounds of interest and a greater number of matrices being tested every day there is a need for confident screening methods. The utilization of data independent acquisition (DIA) affords scientists the ability to screen for targets while also acquiring non-targeted fragment information, which could be used for retroactive analysis of emerging contaminants and future suspects.
A high-resolution LC/Q-TOF (quadrupole time of flight) facilitates the DIA acquisition while aiding identification with extended dynamic range, stable accurate mass, isotopic fidelity, and acquisition speeds supporting specificity of fragment ions.
Presented here is a workflow for pesticide screening that includes QuEChERs sample preparation, the Agilent 1290 Infinity II LC, the new Revident LC/Q-TOF, and MassHunter Quantitative Analysis 12 Screener Tool for fast and routine pesticide analysis. (Figure 1)

Key performance elements of the new Revident LC/Q- TOF are a new detector, resulting in better mass accuracies over a broad range of abundances, as well as an increased dynamic range compared to previous instrument generations. In combination with the Thermo-controlled flight tube, which contributes over long-time mass stability, the overall mass accuracy has substantially increased. This makes the Revident LC/Q-TOF extremely suitable for routine screening in food safety as demonstrated in this work.