Synthesis and use of deuterated fenamiphos and its metabolites as internal standards for mass spectrometric analysis in water

High precision procedure for determination of selected herbicides and their degradation products in drinking water by solid-phase extraction and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry

For target monitoring of selected herbicides in groundwater transport studies, a precise and accurate method for the determination of atrazine (ATR), desethylatrazine (DEAT) and 2,6-dichlorobenzamide (BAM) was developed. The method is based on solid-phase extraction and GC-MS analysis. Deuterated standards are used as surrogates for calibration by the overall procedure. For legal requirements the method described was validated and is regularly subject to external quality control. Typical limits of detection are 2 ng/l. Uncertainty contributions were evaluated using the GUM workbench modelling software. At the concentration level of interest (100 ng/l), an expanded uncertainty of no more than 10% was estimated. Accurate data on the distribution of ATR, DEAT and BAM in affected well fields enabled operational changes to be implemented to control the drinking water supply according to legal requirements.

Deuterated internal standards for gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric analysis of polar organophosphorus pesticides in water samples

It is essential to know whether drinking water contains any pesticides up to concentrations close to the European Union limit of 0.1 microgram/l, in order to protect the population. Mass spectrometry (MS) using a suitable internal standard (I.S.) should improve the quantitative analysis of pesticides, the I.S. circumventing loss of compounds during the analytical procedure and correcting the analytical variability. In this study we verified this assumption in GC-MS, synthesising specific internal standards for four organophosphorus pesticides with poor stability, comparing the performances with and without the I.S.