The November/December 2011 issue of the Journal of AOAC International will feature a Special Guest Editor Section consisting of six papers on “Nontarget Screening Methods for the Analysis of Contaminant Residues in Food Matrixes by Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry and Liquid Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry.”

The special section was guest edited by Kaushik Banerjee, National Research Centre for Grapes, India. Banerjee says, “This special section describes state-of-the-art methodologies for the analysis of pesticide residues in different food and environmental matrixes. The manuscripts represent new research in Germany, Spain, Canada, India, Netherlands, and the U.S.”

The Special Guest Editor Section includes the following contributions:

• “Suitability of an Orbitrap Mass Spectrometer for the Screening of Pesticide Residues in Extracts of Fruits and Vegetables,” by Lutz Alder, Angelika Steinborn, and Sebastian Bergelt, evaluates the sensitivity of a benchtop Orbitrap LC/MS system at a mass resolution of 100 000 FWHM for screening of 500 pesticides in fruits and vegetables compared to a conventional low-resolution LC/MS/MS system. The method is simple and enables screening of an unlimited number of unknown compounds with possibility of retrospective data analysis.
  
• “Evaluation of Relevant Time-of-Flight-MS Parameters Used in HPLC/MS Full-Scan Screening Methods for Pesticide Residues,” by Milagros Mezcua, Octavio Malato, Ma Angeles Martinez-Uroz, Ana Lozano, Ana Agüera, and Amadeo R. Fernández-Alba reports an automatic LC/MS method of screening of fruits and vegetables that uses a database including 300 pesticides, their fragments, and isotopic signals.
  
• “Applications of LC/ESI-MS/MS and UHPLC/Qq-TOF-MS for the Determination of 141 Pesticides in Tea,” by Jian Wang, Willis Chow, and Daniel Leung, presents a modified QuEChERS method for sample preparation, and an UHPLC/Q-ToF-MS for confirmation and an LC/ESI-triple quadrupole (QqQ)-MS/MS system for quantification of pesticide residues in tea.
  
• “Multiresidue Analysis of Plant Growth Regulators in Grapes by Triple Quadrupole (QqQ) and Quadrupole–Time of Flight (Q-ToF) Based Liquid Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry,” by Dasharath P. Oulkar and Kaushik Banerjee, describes a selective and sensitive method for simultaneous residue monitoring of 12 plant growth regulators that used multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) scanning with time segmentation for quantification supported by complimentary analysis by Q-ToF-MS with HR-MS/MS scanning for confirmatory identification.
  
• “Validation of Automated Library-Based Qualitative Screening of Pesticides by Comprehensive Two-Dimensional Gas Chromatography/Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry,” by Hans G.J. Mol, Henk van der Kamp, Guido van der Weg, Martijn van der Lee, Arjen Punt, and Theo C. de RijkIn, focuses on the validation of the qualitative determination of hundreds of pesticides in plant materials using GC × GC with ToF-MS.
  
• “Multiresidue Pesticide Analysis in Ginseng and Spinach by Nontargeted and Targeted Screening Procedures,” by Douglas G. Hayward, Jon W. Wong, Kai Zhang, James Chang, Feng Shi, and Kaushik Banerjee, evaluates five mass spectrometers interfaced to GC and LC for their application to target and nontarget screening of pesticides in spinach and ginseng.

The Special Guest Editor Section, which was arranged by Acquisitions Editor Joseph Sherma, will be available online before print at http://aoac.publisher.ingentaconnect.com/content/aoac/jaoac.  The section is scheduled for the November/December 2011 print issue of J. AOAC Int. For additional information on this special section, please contact Catherine Wattenberg at cwattenberg@aoac.org.  To subscribe to J. AOAC Int. or to purchase reprints of the Special Section, contact Customer Service at CustomerService@aoac.org or Tel: +1-301-924-7077 ext. 170.

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