Residue Analysis
In order to find out whether food or animal feed contains residues of pesticides, various methods of analysis are available.
The Collection of Official Methods under Article 35 of the German Federal Food Act contains a number of approved methods for analysing pesticide residues. An overview of these methods and their applications can be found on the German website "Methodensammlung LMBG online" which is frequently updated. For registered users, the complete methods are available for download.
Upon being cited in the Official Collection, methods which have been published by third parties become coequal to official methods. This applies, for example, to several methods which have been developed by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and published by Wiley/VCH. Since these methods are no longer in print, they are being offered as PDF files on this website.
The majority of analytical methods developed at the moment is based on tandem mass spectrometry, a method which up to date has been used only occasionally in the Official Collection. In tandem mass spectrometry, pesticides are being separated out from a multitude of ingredients according to their molecular mass. Since other ingredients could have the same molecular mass as the selected pesticides, the second part of the mass analysis – hence the title "tandem mass spectrometry" – comes into play. In this second step, all substances of identical molecular mass are "broken down“ and identified via characteristic mass fragments. In order to support international efforts, the BfR compiles and updates data which allows for determination of pesticide residues using tandem mass spectrometry.
