Pesticides determination in soil using solid phase extraction and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with diode array detector (DAD)

Abstract

In this work, the development of an analytical method for the determination of carbofuran (CB), diuron (DI), propham (PR), dicloran (DC), chlorpropham (CH), and tetradifon (TE) in soil by high performance liquid chromatography with diode array detector (HPLC-DAD) is presented. For this study, three important optimizations were performed: 1) HPLC-DAD separation; 2) soil sample pretreatment; and 3) solid phase extraction (SPE). Using the optimum chromatographic conditions, the six pesticides were line-base separated in about 17 minutes. The soil sample pretreatment and the SPE were optimized. For both optimizations, a fractional factorial experiment design was applied. The optimum experimental conditions were defined based on the results from the experimental designs. The developed method was validated in soil samples according to international guidelines, evaluating the selectivity, linearity, limit of detection and quantification, as well as accuracy. Finally, the method was applied to other soil samples. The method could be applied in other laboratories to determine these contaminants in soil samples.