Design of a compressed air modulator to be used in comprehensive multidimensional gas chromatography and its application in the determination of pesticide residues in grapes

In this study, a new modulator that is simple, robust and presents low operation costs, was developed. This modulator uses compressed air to cool two small portions in the first centimeters of the second chromatographic column of a comprehensive multidimensional gas chromatography (GC × GC) system. The results show a variation in the peak area less than 3 and 5% to alkanes and pesticides, respectively. The standard deviations for the retention times in the first and second dimension are around 0.05 min and 0.05 s for all the compounds. The system was optimized with n-alkanes. The GC × GC system proposed was applied in the determination of pyrethroid pesticides (bifenthrin, cypermethrin, deltamethrin, fenvalerate, esfenvalerate, cis- and trans-permethrin) in grape samples. Samples were extracted by the mini-Luke modified method and pesticides were quantified by comprehensive multidimensional gas chromatography with micro electron-capture detection (μECD). The values of method limit of quantification (LOQ) were 0.01–0.02 mg kg−1 for all studied pyrethroid and the values of recovery were between 94.3 and 115.2%, with good precision (RSD < 18.4%), demonstrating that the performance of the total method consisting of a modified Luke extraction method and determination by GC × GC-μECD are satisfactory. This study also showed that the system using a modulator with a double jet of compressed air has the potential for application in the analysis of a wider range of pesticide residues in other commodities since it provides low values of LOQ with acceptable accuracy and precision.