Pesticides and Herbicides

Abstract

This review summarizes the most current technical literature dealing with pesticides and herbicides in the environment. Citations included in this review focus primarily on analytical methods, monitoring, fate and transport, transformation, and treatment strategies as related to pesticides and herbicides in soils, sediments, surface water, and groundwater. ANALYTICAL METHODSOver the past year, several scientists reported on the use of assays for pesticide detection. Wang et al. (2002a) developed an antibody-based rapid test for carbaryl and methoprene for grain handlers to estimate residues of grain protectants in the field. The test had a detection limit of 4.5 ppb (1.1 ppm in grain) for carbaryl and 4 ppb (1 ppm in grain) for methoprene. The variable domains of a triazine-selective single-chain Fv were genetically engineered by stringent molecular evolution in order to optimize analytical characteristics of the corresponding atrazine immunoassay (Kramer, 2002). The application of the mutant antibodies for the atrazine determination of soil samples revealed consistency with HPLC data within the experimental error. Maqbool et al. (2002) developed an ELISA technique for the analysis of atrazine in water with a detection limit of 1 ng/L. Additionally, a rapid and efficient method for the Literature Review 2003 2 selective extraction of s-triazine herbicides in environmental samples was developed using an immunosorbent of monoclonal antiatrazine antibodies, which were encapsulated in a sol-gel glass matrix (Stalikas et al., 2002). High performance liquid chromatography was the primary analytical technique used in two studies. Bassett et al. (2002) developed a high performance liquid chromatographic method to meet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR) Survey need for the analysis of phenylurea pesticides in drinking waters. A molecularly imprinted polymer was synthesized using the herbicide metsulfuronmethyl as a template, 2-(trifluoromethyl)acrylic acid as a functional monomer, divinylbenzene as a cross-linker, and dichloromethane as a porogen (Zhu et al., 2002). This polymer was used as a solid-phase extraction material for the quantitative enrichment of five sulfonylureas (nicosulfuron, thifensulfuron-methyl, metsulfuron-methyl, sulfometuron-methyl, and chlorsulfuron) in natural water and soil samples and off-line coupled to a reversed-phase HPLC/diode array detection. Gas chromatography and solid phase extraction was used for analysis of several pesticides. Duseja and Martindale (2002) compared the results of HPLC with GC analyses on oxyflourfen. The comparison proved that the GC analysis held a high recovery percentage for soils with a MDL of at least 0.005 µg/g, allowing considerable savings of time and labor versus HPLC. Boussahel et al. (2002) reported on the use of solid-phase micro-extraction followed by gas chromatography coupled with an electron capture detector for the analysis of Literature Review 2003 4 algal cell suspensions for the screenin...