Nicotine determination from now on at AGROLAB LUFA

The determination of nicotine residues in food and animal feed will no longer be subcontracted, but performed at the AGROLAB LUFA site in Kiel itself.

Nicotine may no longer be used as a pesticide and disinfectant since the end of 2003. Therefore eggs and egg products must not contain any nicotine. The nicotine detection is very sensitive. We achieve a detection level of 0.001 mg/kg for Nicotine in eggs, where we also determine the main metabolite Cotinin.

For all other matrices the limit of quantification is 0.01 mg/kg. This means that extreme care is required on the customer's side when taking samples. A cigarette smoker as a sampler could transfer a measurable amount of nicotine to the sample just by touching the sample. Incidentally, this is one reason why nicotine traces above the maximum residue level can often be detected, especially in wild mushrooms and wild fruit - simply because the picker was a smoker. Therefore, only non-smokers are allowed to process these samples in our laboratory. Our method is accredited and limited to residue testing, i.e. it is not applicable to pure substances, tobacco products and concentrates.