Simultaneous determination of crop protection agents (CPAs) in food is done with multi-residue methods, which are composed of sample clean-up, concentration, chromatographic separation and detection. The Solid Sorptive Extraction (SSE) technique is used for sample preparation of various analytes in several fields.

The aim of this study was to develop a sensitive and fast method based on SSE followed by thermal desorption-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (TD-GC/MS) to determine CPAs in tobacco samples.

For the analysis of tobacco samples prior to the SSE method, solvent extraction or ultrasound-assisted solvent extraction was performed. Acetonitrile was used as the extraction solvent. The extract was then diluted with water. Finally, the sample was subjected to SSE.

A method for fast screening of CPAs in tobacco using SSE-TD-GC/MS has been developed. About 30 CPAs including organochlorine, organophosphorous and others were identified and quantified. This method showed good linearity and high sensitivity for most of the target CPAs. The method was applied to the determination of CPAs at ng/mL levels in tobacco samples. This method is simple, rapid and may be applied to other components.