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ABSTRACT
In Nigeria, one of the main sources of stale plant protein food crops is cowpea (Vigna unguiculata), which is frequently attacked by insects, especially when it is being stored. This has been a significant production bottleneck that typically requires the use of synthetic chemicals and pesticides, but comes with the issues of excessive pesticide residues. This study intends to show how the length of washing and pH of different washing solutions affect the pesticide residues in cowpea. During the study, cowpea samples spiked with 5% lindane for 24 hours was washed with 10% solution of table salt, baking soda and vinegar at 40℃ at various time intervals (5,10 and 15 minutes). The cowpea was then dried in an oven at 60℃, pulverized and extracted exhaustively with 150ml of dichloromethane in a soxhlet apparatus. The extract was cleaned and dried using anhydrous sodium sulphate and silica gel. Gas chromatography with a Restek column combined with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was used to analyze the mean concentration of these pesticides in the cowpea samples. The percentage of lindane decontamination from the cowpea samples was in ascending order according to the study's results. Cowpea samples that were washed for 5 minutes had the lowest percentage of lindane removed; those that were washed for 10 minutes had an intermediate percentage of lindane removed; and those that were washed for 15 minutes had the highest percentage of lindane removed. Sodium chloride solution (pH 6.59) removed the highest amount of lindane pesticide from cowpea samples. This study discovered that longer washing times, regardless of the washing solution, resulted in decreased lindane content in the cowpea, and that the pH of different washing solutions had an impact on the lindane content of the legume.
