Advances in Plant Safety: Analytical Methods for Pesticide and Contaminant Detection in Crop Products
A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2026 | Viewed by 38
Special Issue Editors
Interests: bioactive natural products; structure elucidation; separation science; mass spectroscopy; organic trace analysis of contaminants
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: separation science; analytical chemistry; food safety; sustainability; environmental impact of pesticides; novel remediation technologies; biobed design; in-the-field installation and performance evaluation
Interests: separation science; pesticides; chemical contaminants; mass spectrometry; single residue methods; food safety; environmental sustainability
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The safety of crop products is the key to ensuring food security and environmental sustainability. Analytical methods, by providing data on the presence of threats, are the basis for understanding complex ecological phenomena, exposome analysis, and food safety-related issues. Modern analytical techniques face evolving challenges. Sample preparation protocols have advanced, guided by principles of chemical economy and miniaturization within the framework of green chemistry. They are now tailored to cutting-edge instrumentation capable of detecting analytes at remarkably low levels. These new instruments allow the simultaneous analysis of different anthropogenic contaminants and xenobiotic families, opening new risk-analysis horizons. The significance of the co-occurrence of pesticide residues, mycotoxins, plant toxins, and emerging pollutants within a single sample remains unknown. However, generating such complex datasets will facilitate a more holistic understanding of ecotoxicology and toxicology risk. Globalization triggered a fluid exchange of exotic produce from different regions, where technological packages of agrochemicals are applied and, at the same time, customs barriers hamper the fluid trade between countries. As a result, new analytical methods are urgently needed for these less-studied matrices to harmonize analytical outcomes across laboratories worldwide. In addition, toxicological evaluations point to toxic pesticide metabolites as new targets to be included in new stringent regulations of MRL definitions, forcing analytical methods for contaminants in produce to evolve and to include them in routine laboratory workflows. The difference between an agricultural product and a food is its safety. The continuous evolution of the analytical methods of trace contaminants collected in this Special Issue will contribute to closing this gap.
Prof. Dr. Horacio Heinzen
Prof. Dr. María Verónica Cesio
Prof. Dr. María Rosa Repetti
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Plants is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- pesticide residues analysis
- contaminants analysis
- multiclass methods
- sample preparation
- LC/GC analysis of trace compounds
- mass spectroscopy
- targeted/non-targeted analysis
- harvest/post-harvest treatments
- post-harvest intervals
- pesticide dissipation
- risk and exposure analysis
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