Statistical and chemometric view of the variation in the concentration of selected organophosphates in peeled unwashed and unpeeled washed fruits and vegetables.

Fruits and vegetables play an important role in human nutrition. Study of the contamination sources which result from farming activities is of importance. For this reason, a chitosan-graphene oxide nanocomposite film was prepared and implemented as the extractive phase in thin film microextraction of six organophosphate residues (OPPs) in the samples using high-performance liquid chromatography. The optimized method was validated and the limits of detection (0.7-1.2 µg l-1), limits of quantification (2.3-4.0 µg l-1) and linear dynamic range (2.0-1000.0 µg l-1) were obtained. Principal component analysis revealed clustering of the fruit and vegetable samples based on the selected (OPPs) into two groups of unwashed-unpeeled and peeled-washed. This mapping was further investigated using descriptive method of boxplot. Washing and peeling of the samples, reduced the presence of OPPs to half or one third of interquartile range found in the unpeeled and unwashed samples.