Rapid and sensitive detection of organophosphate pesticides (OPPs) in agriculture using IMS- NPLS

To improve agricultural productivity and protect crops from pests, farmers often use pesticides. However, the widespread use of toxic organophosphate pesticides (OPPs) necessitates rapid, accurate, and cost-effective detection methods. This study detects Ethion, Malathion, and Phosalone in agricultural samples using Portable Ion Mobility Spectrometry (P-IMS) data combined with the N-mode PLS (N-PLS) algorithm. The N-PLS model demonstrated high accuracy, with adjusted R² values of 0.991 (Ethion), 0.999 (Malathion), and 0.998 (Phosalone), along with strong performance in RMSEP, log-Likelihood, and RPD metrics. The model reliably determined pesticide concentrations and avoided overfitting. Test sample recoveries ranged from 99.5 % to 100.5 %, highlighting the N-PLS method's second-order advantage and its effectiveness as a robust tool for OPP detection in agriculture.