Agilent, Thermo, Waters or shimadzu lcmsms is best for pesti

[Induminipp]

If any one can tell me which is most suitable for pesticides residue analysis?
We need to analyse around 400 pesticides in tea matrix.

[JBetz]

The highest end model from any manufacturer will be your best bet. You'll need powerful sensitivity to detect your LOD/LOQ and top of the line quantitation software to process all that data. 400 analytes will be very difficult to analyze in one single injection FYI. I'll also throw AB Sciex into the mix, specifically their 6500 QTRAP.

I would do your research with the manufacturers and when you make a decision contact the folks at McKinley Scientific... They'll buy out the instrument from the manufacturer and then set you up with a flexible leasing structure to give you options if things don't work out.

[James_Ball]

I had a copy of an application once that was 350 pesticides on a single run using Restek column and ABSciex LCMSMS. It may be online at either of those companies web sites.

The thing you have to look out for is whether or not all of your analytes are amenable to LC. I was working with a large list of about 150 pesticides and in the end found that some can only be analyzed by GCMSMS. If they are not soluble in water/methanol/acetonitrile they just won't work well by LCMSMS. If soluble in toluene/hexane/dichloromethane then you need to look at GCMSMS.

[Induminipp]

Thankz for your replies. We are planing to buy new LCMSMS for pesticides EU requirement. Thats why I want to know which instrument is best.

[James_Ball]

Thankz for your replies. We are planing to buy new LCMSMS for pesticides EU requirement. Thats why I want to know which instrument is best.

It will depend on the limit of detection required somewhat. Agilent 6460 is usually sensitive enough for most work, but I think they are discontinuing that model, the next up is the 6470 which would be good for such work. ABSciex you could probably use the 4500, but better would be the 5500, you probably would not need the sensitivity of the 6500.

I don't know any of the other manufacturers specs so I can't comment on those.

[Rndirk]

A mid to high end LCMS triple quad system of all the manufacturers you list will be capable of quantifying hundreds of pesticides (pesticides suited for liquid chromatography!) in one injection. You'll want fast switching between positive and negative ionisation.

Last year I went trough a rather extensive comparison of Agilent, Thermo, Waters and ABSciex high-end LC triple quad systems for our lab (food & environmental). Visits, demos, test samples, price offers,.... Suprisingly or not, in terms of analytical power the systems were all very close.

In the end, we've chosen the system that we believed was the most user friendly (soft- and hardware), and the manufacturer which we believed was capable of giving the best support. Note that the first criterion is subjective, and the latter is very dependant on the location of your lab. I advice to get multiple references from labs in your region: what do they use, how many samples do they run, how robust is the system, how is the support, how much maintenance is needed?

[Induminipp]

Thanks. I need to analyse up to 0.01mg/kg for tea matrix.