Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry applied for the analysis of triazine herbicides in environmental waters

Abstract

The excess use of triazine herbicides in agriculture causes severe contamination to the environment especially for ground water. Gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC/MS) was used to analyze simazine, atrazine (ATR), cyanazine, as well as the degradation products of ATR such as deethylatrazine and deisopropylatrazine in environmental water samples. These compounds were baseline separated by the established GC method. The water samples were pre-concentrated by solid-phase-extraction (SPE) and analyzed by ion trap MS at sub-to low-ppt levels. Recovery of ATR by the SPE pre-concentration using a C 18 cartridge was determined as 90.5 AE 3.5%. Detection limit of the method using selected ion monitoring technique for ATR was 1.7 ppt when one liter water was analyzed. The relative analytical error for ATR fortified water samples at 200 ppt was )12.5% ðn ¼ 12Þ with triple analysis and the relative standard deviation was 3.2%. Trace levels of ATR at 3.9 and 9.7 ppt were determined in water samples collected from a reservoir and a river in Hong Kong.

Recent Advances in the Extraction of Triazines from Water Samples

“…The SPE procedure for comparison was performed as described [40]: C18 SPE cartridges (500 mg, Bound Elut, Varian, Netherlands) were conditioned using 5 ml of ethyl acetate, 5 ml of methanol and 5 ml of deionized water at a flow rate around 2 ml min -1…”

Critical Revision and Development Perspectives of Herbicide Residues Analysis in Agro Ecosystems

“…A GC-MS method was developed for the detection of triazine herbicides (atrazine, cyanazine, simazine) and their decomposition products (deethylatrazine, deisopropylatrazine) in environmental waters. The water samples were extracted using an octadecylsilica SPE cartridge with recoveries and RSD in their acceptable ranges (Ma et al, 2003). SPME combined with GC-MS was developed and employed for the determination of 10 herbicides (alachlor, atrazine, chlorotoluron, diclofop, diflufenicam, ethofumesata, isoproturon, linuron, terbutryn and trifluralin) in surface and ground water.…”

Novel solid-phase membrane tip extraction and gas chromatography with mass spectrometry methods for the rapid analysis of triazine herbicides in real waters

“…Sample preparation is an integral part of any environmental sample analysis . Some sample preparation methods such as LLE , SPE , SPME , and LPME are available for the extraction of triazine herbicides. Some workers used multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) as an adsorbent for the extraction of alkyl phenol, phthalates, organophosphorus pesticides, and volatile organic compounds in SPE method .…”