Experimental
Reagents and solutionsAll solvents used were of HPLC grade. Methanol, acetone, ethyl acetate, acetonitrile, hexane and diethyl ether were purchased from Fischer Scientific, Loughborough, UK. Deionized water and hexane were filtered through a 0.45-μm membrane filter purchased from Millipore. Anhydrous sodium sulfate was purchased from J. T. Baker, NJ, USA.The use of high-purity reagents and solvents helps to minimize interference problems. The pesticide standards (acephate, dimethoate, malathion, diazinon, quinalphos, chlorpyrifos, profenofos, α-endosulfan, b-endosulfan, chlorothalonil and carbaryl) were 90.0 -99.5% pure and purchased from AccuStandard Inc. New Haven, CT, USA.All pesticides were dissolved in hexane at 1000 mg/kg concentrations as stock solutions. A mixture containing 0.01 -0.5 mg/kg of each pesticide in hexane was prepared from the stock solutions and as the working solution. In order to avoid any influence on the results from the possible degradation of pesticides, the working solution was freshly prepared every day.1-Chloro-4-fluorobenzene (1 mg/kg) was used as an internal standard to compensate for any sample and injection volume changes, and was added to the vial prior to GC analysis.