Determination of Organochlorine Pesticides Residue in Ginseng Root by Orthogonal Array Design Soxhlet Extraction and Gas Chromatography

Organochlorine pesticides are known to enter plant products from contamination via spillage and volatilization of the residues from pesticide-treated soils or storage. A method involving four-factor-three-level orthogonal array design including extracting solvent component, particle size, solvent overflow recycle and time needed for the optimization of extracting nine organochlorine pesticides from ginseng root was developed using Soxhlet extraction followed by capillary gas chromatography–electron capture detection and mass spectrometric confirmation. The extraction conditions were optimized from the experimental data. Relationship between the bioaccumulation of benzenehexachloride isomers and their polarity is discussed based on experimental results.