Determination of some organophosphorus pesticides in water and watermelon samples by microextraction prior to high-performance liquid chromatography

Abstract

A novel method based on simultaneous liquid-liquid microextraction and carbon nanotube reinforced hollow fiber microporous membrane solid-liquid phase microextraction has been developed for the determination of six organophosphorus pesticides, i.e. isocarbophos, phosmet, parathion-methyl, triazophos, fonofos and phoxim, in water and watermelon samples prior to high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Under the optimum conditions, the method shows a good linearity within a range of 1-200 ng/mL for water samples and 5-200 ng/g for watermelon samples, with the correlation coefficients (r) varying from 0.9990 to 0.9997 and 0.9986 to 0.9995, respectively. The limits of detection (LODs) were in the range between 0.1 and 0.3 ng/mL for water samples and between 1.0 and 1.5 ng/g for watermelon samples. The recoveries of the method at spiking levels of 5.0 and 50.0 ng/mL for water samples were between 85.4 and 100.8%, and at spiking levels of 5.0 and 50.0 ng/g for watermelon samples, they were between 82.6 and 92.4%, with the relative standard deviations (RSDs) varying from 4.5-6.9% and 5.2-7.4%, respectively. The results suggested that the developed method represents a simple, low-cost, high analytes preconcentration and excellent sample cleanup procedure for the determination of organophosphorus pesticides in water and watermelon samples.