Analyses of pesticides and their metabolites in foods and drinks

The importance of matrix pretreatment, sample extraction and clean-up in multiresidue methods for pesticide analyses is discussed, with emphasis on alternative new techniques attempted worldwide such as accelerated solvent extraction, microwave-assisted extraction, solid-phase extraction, solid-phase micro-extraction, matrix solid-phase dispersion, supercritical fluid chromatography, ultrasonic extraction and gel permeation chromatography. Detection employing capillary gas chromatography and high-performance liquid chromatography in conjunction with mass spectrometry, capillary electrophoresis, immunoassay techniques and others is summarized.