Abstract

Nowadays, contents of pesticide residues in vegetables had become one of the hot topics closely related to human health. In order to investigate the effectiveness of several cleaning solutions in removing pesticide residues in vegetables, a polluted cauliflower was washed using five types of cleaning solutions which were soda-salt solution, vinegar solution, tamarind juice solution, filtered flour solution, and tap water. Chlorpyrifos was extracted from residues cleaning process and cauliflower itself. Gas chromatography-electron capture detector was used to identify content in residues cleaning process (RCP). Tamarind juice solution had the greatest removal effect, in relation to other of cleaning solutions, with 93.04% removal rate followed by filtered flour solution (17.03%) and vinegar solution (11.42%). However, soda-salt solution and tap water did not have any removal effect in removing chlorpyrifos in cauliflower. Tamarind juice solution was significantly higher than other types of cleaning solutions and tamarind juice solutions itself is a natural fruit juice and non-chemical substance with very easy preparation; therefore, the tamarind juice solution can be used as a general-purpose cleaning solution to remove chlorpyrifos residues in cauliflower.

Key words: Pesticide residues, chlorpyrifos, cleaning solutions, removal effect.