Analysis of molluscicide metaldehyde in vegetables by dispersive solid-phase extraction and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

Abstract

This paper describes the development and validation of a new reverse-phase liquid chromatography-electrospray ionisation tandem mass spectrometric method (RP-HPLC-ESI-MS/MS) for the determination of metaldehyde in different kinds of vegetables. Metaldehyde was extracted with 20 ml acetonitrile from 10 g vegetable and followed by dispersive solid-phase extraction (Bondesil-primary secondary amine, PSA). The identification of metaldehyde was established by chromatographic retention times, analyte-specific fragmentation patterns and relative peak area ratios of two precursor/product ion pairs. The limit of detection of this method was 0.01 mg kg⁻¹ using an injection volume of 5 µl. The repeatability of this method is excellent and the relative standard deviation (RSD) is less than 4%.

Keywords:

• metaldehyde
• vegetable
• dispersive solid-phase extraction
• LC-MS/MS

Acknowledgements

This study was sponsored by Xuzhou Nuote Chemical Technology Limited (Jiangsu Province, China) and the Institute for the Control of Agrochemicals, Ministry of Agriculture of the People's Republic of China.