Ultrasound-assisted solvent extraction of organochlorine pesticides from porous membrane packed tea samples followed by GC–MS analysis

In this work, we developed a simple and cost-effective method for extraction and analysis of organochlorine pesticides in tea samples. The tea samples were packed inside a porous polypropylene membrane bag and subjected to ultrasound-assisted solvent extraction. This procedure omitted the post-extraction steps of centrifugation and separation of solid content from the extract. It also provided effective cleanup against the matrix components and other extraneous matter as all the sample was packed inside a membrane bag. Different parameters that can affect the performance of the extraction procedure such as sample amount, solvent type and volume, extraction time, and ultrasound intensity were suitably optimized. Under the optimal conditions, good linearity was obtained for 13 organochlorine pesticides with the coefficients of determination (R²) higher than 0.9914 in the different ranges of 5–500, 10–500, and 20–500 ng/g. The limits of detection were in the range of 1.4–7.2 ng/g. The relative standard deviations (n = 6) were <16%. The method was applied for extraction of OCPs in three different samples, and satisfactory spiked relative recoveries in the range of 86.1–100.3% were obtained. This method demonstrated excellent potential for simple and efficient analysis of organochlorine pesticides in tea samples.