Authors: Alain Hildebrandt Sílvia Lacorte Damià Barceló
Publish Date: 2007/01/09
Volume: 387, Issue: 4, Pages: 1459-1468
Abstract
Gas chromatographymass spectrometry GC/MS was employed for the determination of 30 widely used pesticides including various transformation products and alkylphenols in water and agricultural soils with the aim of assessing the impact of these compounds in agricultural soils and the underlying aquifer The extraction cleanup and analytical procedures were optimized for both water and soil samples to provide a highly robust method capable of determining target analytes at the ppb–ppt level with high precision For water samples different solidphase extraction cartridges and conditions were optimized similarly pressurized liquid extraction conditions were tested to provide interferencefree extracts and high sensitivity Instrumental LODs of 3–4 pg were obtained The multiresidue extraction procedures were applied to the analysis of groundwaters and agricultural soils from the Ebro river basin NE Spain Most ubiquitous herbicides detected were triazines but some acetanilides and organophosphorus pesticides were also found the pesticide additive tributylphosphate was found in all water samples Levels varied between 057 and 537 μg/L in groundwater whereas nonylphenol was the sole compound detected in soil Alkylphenols are used as adjuvants in pesticide formulations and are present in sludges employed as soil fertilizers Occurrence was found to be similar to other environmental studiesThis research project was founded by the European Union under the Global Change and Ecosystems FP6 Water Cycle and Soil Related Aspects AQUATERRA Project number 505428 GOCE This work reflects only authors’ views and the European Community is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained Financial support from Spanish Ministry of Education and Science Project number CTM200525168E is also acknowledged The authors also thank Waters Corporation and Merck for providing SPE cartridges as well as Dr Roser Chaler Dori Fanjul and Alicia Navarro for their assistance with GCMS
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