Determination of 15 Plant Growth Regulators Residues in Fruits and Vegetables by Modified QuEChERS Coupled with UPLC-Q-Orbitrap HRMS

A method was developed for the simultaneous determination of 15 plant growth regulators residues in fruits and vegetables by ultra performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole/electrostatic field orbitrap high resolution mass spectrometry(UPLC-Q-Orbitrap HRMS)with modified QuEChERS. The samples were extracted by acetonitrile containing 1% acetic acid and purified by MWCNTs,separated on a Hypersil GOLD aq C₁₈ column(2.1 mm×100 mm,1.9 μm),gradient elution with acetonitrile and water(containing 0.1% formic acid-5 mmol/L ammonium formate). The target compounds were analyzed in full scan/data-dependent MS2(Full MS/dd-MS2)mode,and quantified by using the matrix-matched standard calibration. The results showed that the correlation coefficients was over than 0.990 in the range of 2.0~500.0 μg/mL.The three-level spiked recoveries were between from 70.3% to 107.2% with relative standard deviation from 1.4% to 9.9%. The limits of quantitation were 10.0~20.0 μg/kg. The method was simple,sensitive,accurate and suitable for the rapid screening and quantitative analysis of plant growth regulators in fruits and vegetables.