Detecting Pesticides on Produce with Spectroscopy

Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich have developed a new method for detecting pesticides on produce. The new method uses plasma to collect molecules from the surface of fruits or vegetables and push them into a quadrupole time-of-flight (QTOF) mass spectrometer for analysis.

This new method uses an atmospheric pressure glow-discharge (APGD) source developed by members of the research team to generate the plasma. By eliminating the time-intensive step of extracting physical samples from the produce for analysis, this method makes the detection process considerably faster than traditional detection methods.