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BACKGROUND Plant protection products (PPPs) are used extensively in agriculture to control crops. These PPPs, which may be found in different types of formulations, are composed of a designated pesticide (active principle) and other inactive ingredients as co‐formulants. They perform specific functions in the formulation, as solvents, preservatives or antifreeze agents, among others. RESULTS A research technique based on ultra‐high‐performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) coupled to a Quadrupole‐Orbitrap mass analyzer was successfully applied to characterize the composition of six different PPPs in terms of the presence of co‐formulants and types of formulations: emulsifiable concentrate (EC), emulsion in water (EW), suspension concentrate and water‐dispersible granule. These PPPs (FLINT MAX, MASSOCUR 12.5 EC, IMPACT EVO, TOPAS, LATINO and IMPALA STAR) had antifungal activity, containing one triazole compound as active principle (tebuconazole, penconazole, myclobutanil, flutriafol or fenbuconazole, respectively). Non‐targeted approaches, applying suspect and unknown analysis, were carried out and ten compounds were identified as potential co‐formulants. Six (glyceryl monostearate, 1‐monopalmitin, dimethyl sulfoxide, N,N‐dimethyldecanamide, hexaethylene glycol and 1,2‐benzisothiazol‐3(2H)‐one) were confirmed by injecting analytical standards. Finally, these compounds were quantified in the PPPs. CONCLUSION The current study allowed for detecting co‐formulants in a wide range of concentrations, between 0.04 (dimethyl sulfoxide) and 19.00 g L−1 (glyceryl monostearate), highlighting the feasibility of the proposed analytical methodology. Moreover, notable differences among the types of formulations of PPPs were achieved, revealing that EC and EW were the formulations that contained the largest number of co‐formulants (four out of six detected compounds). © 2022 The Authors. Journal of The Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.

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Flutriafol is a systemic triazole fungicide that is used to control diseases in various crops. A study was developed to evaluate the metabolism and dissipation of flutriafol in two different scenarios: laboratory and greenhouse conditions. Courgette and tomato samples treated with a commercial product (IMPACT® EVO) at the manufacturer recommended dose were analyzed, and courgette samples were also treated at double dose. Ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with Q-Orbitrap mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-Orbitrap-MS), performing targeted and non-targeted approaches (suspect screening and unknown analysis), were used to analyze the samples. The dissipation of flutriafol was fitted to a biphasic kinetic model, with a persistence, expressed as half-life (t1/2), lower than 17 days. During suspect screening, three metabolites (triazole alanine, triazole lactic acid and triazole acetic acid) were tentatively identified. Unknown analysis led to the identification of four additional metabolites (C16H14F2N4, C16H14F2N4, C19H17F2N5O2 and C22H23F2N3O6). The results revealed that the proposed methodology is reliable for the determination of flutriafol and its metabolites in courgette and tomato, and seven metabolites could be detected at low concentration levels. The highest concentration of metabolites was found in the laboratory conditions at 34.5 µg/kg (triazole alanine). The toxicity of flutriafol metabolites was also evaluated, and some of them could be more toxic than the parent compound.

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