The purpose of this study was to investigate the fate of organophosphorus pesticides (OPs) during camellia oil production process, from camellia fruit to the final oil product. The results showed that the OPs were mainly distributed in the peel of camellia fruit, basically above 40% after the pesticide application of 7 d (P < 0.05). A small amount of OPs could enter into the seed and convert to crude camellia oil, with the concentration of 19.5 to 548.2 mg/L. In addition, metabolites of OPs (25.7 to 768.9 mg/L) could be detected in the crude camellia oil. Moreover, the refining process (degumming, deacidfying, bleaching) had a significant effect on the removal of OPs from the crude camellia oil (P < 0.05), and the effect was related to the octanol-water partition constant (LogP) of pesticide. The larger the LogP, the more stable the OPs were during refining process. The final refined camellia oil was found to have no detectable levels of OPs metabolite.
Keywords: camellia oil; metabolite; organophosphorus pesticide; refining process; residue.
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