creator Kalle, Niranjan advisor Zhang, Wei Pesticides are used in agriculture for eradicating pests and to increase the yield and productivity crops. These pesticides show much effect on health of humans. There are different types of pesticides such as Insecticides, Herbicides, Fungicides and Pyrethroids. While there is a benefit for the use of pesticides, there can be a negative impact to human health. Exposure to these pesticides from ingestion or oral intake is the most common route of pesticide exposure. Removal of these pesticides from fruits and vegetables would lower the exposure and risk to human health from these pesticides. The objective of this research is to study the effectiveness of various washing methods for the reduction of pesticide residues from fresh fruits and vegetables. Samples of cherry tomatoes were treated with pesticide formulation of 120ppm which is prepared by mixing 6 pesticides (Bifenthrin, Chlorothalonil, Cyhalothrin, Cypermethrin, Malathion and Permethrin). Treated tomatoes were washed with solutions (water, Sodium hypochloride (80ppm), Peroxy acetic acid(80ppm), and Tween20(0.1%)). Ultrasonicator is used as a tool for washing along with the washing solvents. The % reduction of pesticides was determined by extracting the sample through QuECHERS (AOAC 2007.01) method and analyzed by using GC-MS and LC-MS/MS. The analysis of pesticide residues extracted from tomato samples by GC-MS and LC-MS/MS showed a significant reduction in pesticides when washed with peroxy acetic acid compared to sodium hypochlorite and Tween20. Washing with ultrasonicator in combination with washing solvents showed 10% more reduction than washing alone with solutions. Submitted by Dana Lamparello (dlampare@iit.edu) on 2011-11-30T22:44:22Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Final_thesis - Niranjan Kalle.pdf: 3140173 bytes, checksum: 5bfbfa3dda9baaedb9cc7b6d1d8b659c (MD5) Niranjan Kalle - front page of thesis.pdf: 31009 bytes, checksum: d09683434043282d9f8f4d4b9f91ee80 (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2011-11-30T22:44:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Final_thesis - Niranjan Kalle.pdf: 3140173 bytes, checksum: 5bfbfa3dda9baaedb9cc7b6d1d8b659c (MD5) Niranjan Kalle - front page of thesis.pdf: 31009 bytes, checksum: d09683434043282d9f8f4d4b9f91ee80 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-07 M.S. in Food Safety and Technology, July 2011 2011-07-27 2011-07 http://hdl.handle.net/10560/2353 en Thesis born digital application/pdf In Copyright http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/ Restricted Access BIOL / Biology Illinois Institute of Technology Affiliated department