Assessment of Pyrethroid Pesticides in Topsoils in Northern Portugal

Abstract

Pyrethroid insecticides are emerging contaminants broadly used for insect pest control in agriculture, veterinary, and domestic applications. Limited information can be found in literature regarding pyrethroid pesticide soil contamination in playgrounds and agricultural areas. The focus of this study was on new findings related to the spatial and seasonal occurrence of pyrethroid pesticide contamination in soils of northern Portugal. The soils were tested during summer and winter seasons. Pyrethroid pesticides were not found in the ten playgrounds sampled during both seasons. For the 18 agricultural soil samples tested, deltamethrin was the only pyrethroid detected, just during the summer season. For those, three of the samples taken were found to be positive with concentrations between 15.7 and 101.7 ng g −1 . The results denote the need for monitoring and assessment of pyrethroid pesticide contamination in Portuguese soil. Further research is needed to access the ecological potential impact of pyrethroid pesticides on soil.

Life cycle assessment of simultaneous pyrethroid extraction in soil matrices: A comparative study with QuEChERS method

“…In this study, the life cycle assessment was performed using gate-to-gate system boundary, where the assessment was focussing on the extraction process in the laboratory (see Figure 1). Based on the previous study using the standard QuEChERS method [7], the pyrethroid was extracted as much as 80-100% from the soil matrices as well as in our modified QuEChERS method. However, the number of equipment, materials, and energy consumption used by each method during the extraction process was different, thus generated different impacts on the environment.…”

“…Globally, the conventional extraction process for pyrethroid was referred to QuEChERS method from the European (EN15662 2008) [7]. The soil (5 g) consists of 0.2 µg.g-1 mixed pyrethroids standard in acetonitrile was weighed into a Teflon tube (50 mL), and 10 mL of acetonitrile was added.…”

“…This value was chosen based on recoveries value obtained for five pyrethroids extracted which was in the range 80-100% based on AOAC (Association of Official Analytical Chemists International) [32]. The estimation of recovery for each method was previously explained in detail [7,8].…”

“…Several extraction processes based on green analytical chemistry for pyrethroids analysis in soil matrix have been proposed [2][3][4]. The application of ultrasonic-assisted extraction for pyrethroids extraction from soil has been successfully applied either in conventional methods [5,6] or newly developed method based on green analytical chemistry through miniaturization and QuEChERS 1017 (2022) 012018 IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1755-1315/1017/1/012018 2 methods [3,7,8]. Compared to the Soxhlet application, the introduced green extraction methods, ultrasonic-assisted extraction has reduced the environmental impact through sample miniaturization and less solvent used [2], [9], [10], [11].…”

“…QuEChERS or the quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged and safe is one of the extraction processes claimed as the greenest methodology as an alternative to the traditional extraction method [31]. In the present study, the life cycle assessment of a developed extraction method or modified QuEChERS [8] was assessed and compared to the European standard extraction method [7]. In this study, the modified QuEChERS from previous research [8] was validated and has been proven suitable for pyrethroid analysis in soil matrix.…”