Determination of Pesticide Residues in Fish

Pesticide residues occurring in fish of marine and freshwater media is a continuous issue for food safety and environmental monitoring. In the last 40 years the analysis of organohalogen pesticides in marine fish has been conducted seeking to trace the bioaccumulation and biomagnification in food webs. The analysis of organochlorine, highly lipophilic compounds, was performed using sample preparation methods with a large solvent consumption followed by instrumental determination using gas chromatography with electron capture detectors. Fish as an analytical matrix presents particular challenges for residue analysis because of the large amount of different edible species, the variable proportion of fatty tissues and the they requirements for sample preservation. Moreover, different non-traditional tissues such as gills or the brain are of recent interest in environmental monitoring and pesticide exposure studies. In the last decades, new concepts for the sample preparation of trace contaminants in fish have been developed, based on sample miniaturization and minimal reagent consumption capable of analyzing a large palette of active principles, from non-polar to semi-polar ones.