Automation in quantifying phenoxy herbicides and bentazon in surface water and groundwater using novel solid phase extraction and liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry

An Alternative Strategy for Screening and Confirmation of 330 Pesticides in Ground- and Surface Water Using Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry

“…The acidic condition is quite important for phenoxy herbicides that have an acidic character [ 26 ]; however, the acidification resulted in a considerable loss of more than half of the compounds compared to the neutral condition. The SPE cartridge had no retention for phenoxy herbicides above pH 5 [ 24 ]. Only matrix-matched calibration and isotope dilution could improve the recovery, approximately, two-thirds of the analytes did not reach the recovery limit of 60% either at pH of 3 or 5.…”

“…Since, the acidic condition resulted in higher compound loss, the phenoxy herbicides could not be analyzed by the method. Instead, these compounds require negative ionization [ 24 ]. Under acidic conditions, the basic target compounds are in a more polar chemical form and had lower retention on the cartridge, while the neutral and acidic pesticides could be well extracted at lower pH.…”

“…The real sample analysis mostly covered surface water that is generally more polluted with pesticides [ 5 , 7 , 8 , 24 ]. The one groundwater tested did not contain pesticide above 10 ng/L ( Table 2 ), but it did contain detectable pesticides between 1 and 10 ng/L.…”

“…A recent Hungarian study on pesticides in ground- and surface water reported that more than half samples contained detectable levels of pesticides, and about 5% of the samples contained pesticides at levels exceeding the 100 ng/L maximum concentration level for individual pesticides, and 500 ng/L maximum concentration level for the sum of pesticides as specified by EU directives [ 11 , 12 , 13 ]. Additionally, numerous research articles have reported the frequent detection of pesticides in water worldwide [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 ]. The other environmental concern is the fate of pesticides, which can lead to harmful metabolites with unknown toxicity to animals and humans [ 3 , 8 , 9 ].…”

“…The extraction of more hydrophilic compounds with LLE results in losses during sample preparation, therefore solid-phase extraction (SPE) shall be employed to obtain fit-for-purpose recovery for a broader range of analytes [ 2 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 36 , 37 ]. SPE utilizing modified hydrophilic polymeric cartridges enables the extraction of both polar and non-polar compounds if the sample pH is optimal [ 22 , 23 , 24 , 28 , 33 , 36 , 37 ]. Our aim was to develop an SPE clean-up method that enables the analysis of as many pesticides as possible in water.…”