Annex White book.pdf

A4.4 PESTICIDE RESIDUESThe European Union does not provide a single limit for pesticidecontent in spices.Frequent controls of Greek saffron have never demonstrated theexistence of organic-phosphoric, nitrogen or halogen pesticide waste.In Spain, nowadays, the legal framework is the Royal Decree280/1994, which transposed three European Community directives tothe national law (directive 76/895 EC, directive 86/362 EEC, directive90/642 EEC). A modification by the Royal Decree 198/2000 followedin order to include the amendments deriving from the applied directive97/41 EC. Thus, Spain provides maximum residue limits (MLR) for 430pesticides applied on spices, according to the unified law of April 2005.The methodology applied is as follows: pesticide residues are extractedfrom a round bottle containing 100 ml of acetone/dichloromethane solution50/50 (v/v) through soaking for 12 hours. The extract received isfiltered with anhydrous sodium sulphate for absorption of the humidity.The anhydrous sodium sulphate is washed with 25 ml of acetone/dichloromethane and the infiltrate is dried in a rotating evaporator at avacuum temperature of 40 o C. The remaining is dissolved then again in 5ml of cyclohexane. The sample injection is performed with a high volumeinjector equipped with CarboFit. The amount used is 10 μl. The conditionsdefined for the injector and the chamber, as well as the columnfeatures are shown in the tables 13, 14 and 15 respectively.Temperature ( o C) Program Ta ( o C/minute) Time (minutes)70 0 0.50300 100 10.00Table 13. Injector conditionsTemperature ( o C) Program Ta ( o C/minute) Time (minutes)70 0 3.50180 25.0 10.00300 4 10.00Table 14. Chamber temperature program168