Indirect analysis of urea herbicides from environmental water using solid-phase microextraction

We described here a solid-phase microextraction procedure used to extract six urea pesticides — chlorsulfuron, fluometuron, isoproturon, linuron, metobromuron and monuron — from environmental samples. Two polydimethylsiloxanes and a polyacrylate fiber (PA) are compared. The extraction time, pH control, addition of NaCl to the water and the influence of organic matter such as humic acid on extraction efficiency were examined to achieve a sensitive method. Determination was carried out by gas chromatography with nitrogen–phosphorus detection. The proposed method requires the extraction of 2 ml of sample (pH 4, 14.3%, w/v, NaCl) for 60 min with the PA fiber. The limits of detection range from 0.04 for linuron to 0.1 μg/l for fluometuron and monuron and the relative standard deviations at the 1 μg/l level are between 15% and 9%. The apparent fiber–water distribution constants (Kfw) calculated in the proposed conditions were in the order of 103. Phenylurea herbicides were indirectly determined in the form of their derived anilines and chlorsulfuron in the form of an aminotriazine as confirmed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. Natural waters were utilized to validate the final procedure. However, a unequivocal identification in unknown environmental samples should be done by LC–MS. The presence of dissolved organic matter such as humic acid produces losses during the extraction step. Adding sodium chloride to the sample compensates for this effect.