# Non-Targeted Analysis of Carbofuran and Related Compounds in Commercial Formulations and Animal Tissue

## TL;DR

This study developed a new method to detect and identify Carbofuran and related compounds in animal tissues and commercial formulations using advanced mass spectrometry techniques.

## Contribution

The novel non-targeted analysis workflow enables simultaneous characterization of volatile and low-volatile compounds in Carbofuran formulations.

## Key findings

- The method successfully identified almost all compounds in formulations with high probability using NIST library comparisons.
- Carbofuran was detected in two out of three animal tissue samples.
- Only 3-keto-carbofuran was found in one sample, making it impossible to determine the specific formulation used.

## Abstract

Recently, some cases of intentional animal poisoning using Carbofuran (CF) occurred in the Czech Republic, although CF is no longer available in the EU market. The present study describes a novel non-targeted analysis (NTA) workflow developed to possibly characterize 13 CF formulations from various sources to be certainly identified in real samples. Furthermore, a detection and quantification method for CF was developed for analyzing three animal samples, obtained from dead animals. The analyses were conducted using the liquid electron ionization (LEI) interface coupled with a quadrupole time-of-flight (QTOF) mass spectrometer, allowing the simultaneous characterization of the formulation’s volatile and low-volatile fractions. Almost all compounds detected in the different formulations were identified by comparing the experimental spectra with the NIST library at high probability values (95–99.38%). Determination of molecular ions, followed by MS/MS analysis, was performed to confirm compound identities at a high level of confidence. The quantification method for CF was successfully validated, showing negligible matrix effects (107%). CF was detected in two out of the three real samples. Only 3-keto-carbofuran was detected in one of the real samples; without any other marker, it was not possible to identify the specific formulation used in the three poisoning cases.