Novel advancements in assisted techniques and microextraction of pesticide residues from food samples

Pesticide agrochemicals have long been used for crop protection to improve agricultural productivity.Wide ranges of pesticide combinations have been developed so as to restrain fast evolving pest spectrum. Multiclass pesticide combinations used for crop treatment create problem of persistence in the agro-environment posing potential health hazard to the consumer and ecosystem. This accentuates need for development of efficient pesticide multiresidue methods for risk evaluation. Newer trends in analysis of pesticides in food intend at use of solvent minimized extractions with scope of automation and hyphenation to bring fast, accurate and sensitive analysis. Accelerated extraction techniques based on microwave, ultrasonication and microsolvent approaches such as liquid phase, solid phase microextraction LPME, SPME respectively; underlies the objectives of green analysis as well provide scope for integration. Additionally, these novel ʹsolvent- freeʹ extraction methods vouch for their efficacy and selectivity in comparison to their ʹclassicalʹ counterparts. Present paper extensively updates developments in modern, assisted instrumental extraction approaches along with novel aspects of microextraction techniques introduced in pesticide multiresidue analysis of foods. Noteworthy advantages and pitfalls of extraction modules based on these techniques are also evaluated.