Multi-residue analysis of 30 currently used pesticides in fine airborne particulate matter (PM 2.5) by microwave-assisted extraction and liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry

Optimisation of pressurised liquid extraction for the ultra-trace quantification of 20 priority substances from the European Water Framework Directive in atmospheric particles by GC–MS and LC–FLD–MS/MS

“…A significant variability between the two sites can be observed for pesticides which are more frequently detected in Ecully (residential area), indicating a domestic use of these substances. The observed contamination pattern is in agreement with previously reported results for atmospheric aerosols [6,12,19,21,28].…”

“…4) indicate that for the majority of compounds, the signal modification was less than 30% except for 4-nonylphenol, fluoranthene and anthracene due to the lack of specificity of the detector used (FLD), which leads to strong matrix effects. To compensate these matrix effects, the use of matrix-matched standards is considered as an efficient method to eliminate the consequences of matrix effects on the reliability (accuracy and precision) of data [21,43]. Consequently, a matrix-matched calibration curve with six points was used for quantification.…”

“…Most studies are related to wet deposition [15][16][17]. Dry depositions are widely studied for a better understanding of air quality [12,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30], but there are only few studies that quantify the contributions of the atmospheric sources to stormwater pollutants loads [31]. Indeed, the conventional dust samplers using air aspiration are not suitable for determining the contribution of atmospheric deposition to the pollutants loads accumulating on urban surfaces.…”

“…Moreover, analytical methods mainly focus on a single class of compounds like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) [19,[24][25][26][27][28], carboxylic acids [20,22,23,29] and pesticides [21,30]. Simultaneous analysis of different families of pollutants is not very common especially for atmospheric particulate matter [18,34,35].…”

“…This preparation step should be followed by an analytical method which is sufficiently sensitive and selective to quantify compounds in trace amounts [36,37]. Common extraction procedures of pollutants in solid matrix include Pressurized Liquid Extraction (PLE) [19,23,26], Microwave Assisted Extraction (MAE) [21,24,30], sonication [18,27,28], Soxhlet [22] and solid liquid extraction [29]. The two latter sample extraction techniques were used almost exclusively in the 1980s and 1990s, but they are labour-intensive, time-consuming and require large volumes of solvent.…”