Study of semi-automated solid-phase extraction for the determination of acaricide residues in honey by liquid chromatography

A solid-phase extraction (SPE) method followed by a reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) procedure is reported for the assay of a wide polarity range acaricide residues in honey. After selection of suitable chromatographic and detection conditions, most steps of the SPE procedure that may affect to the recovery were investigated. Honey sample was buffered at pH 6 and then applied to the preconditioned C18 sorbent. A washing step was performed with 1 ml of a mixture of tetrahydrofuran (THF)–phosphate buffer (10:90, v/v) and finally, the analytes were eluted with 1 ml of THF. The extract was evaporated to dryness, reconstituted in mobile phase and chromatographed on a reversed-phase C18 column with diode array detection. The recoveries of the more polar acaricides were higher than 80% and 60–70% for the more apolar ones. Limits of detection obtained ranged from 1 to 200 ng/g.