Enantioseparation and stereoselective dissipation of the novel chiral fungicide pydiflumetofen by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry

Abstract

Pydiflumetofen is a novel and efficient broad-spectrum chiral fungicide consisting of a pair of enantiomers. A simple and sensitive chiral analytical method was established to determine the enantiomers of this chiral fungicide in food and environmental samples by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography tandem triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) using QuEChERS method coupled with octadecylsilane-dispersive solid-phase extraction (C18-dSPE) as extraction procedure. The specific optical rotation and the absolute configuration of the enantiomers were identified by polarimetry and electronic circular dichroism (ECD). The elution order of the pydiflumetofen enantiomers on Lux Cellulose-2 was S-(−)-pydiflumetofen and R-(+)-pydiflumetofen. The average recoveries of eleven matrices ranged from 71.3% to 107.4%. The intraday relative standard deviations (RSDs) were less than 11.8%, and the interday RSDs were less than 12.6% for the two enantiomers. Stereoselective dissipation in pakchoi and soil were observed: S-(−)-pydiflumetofen was degraded faster than R-(+)-pydiflumetofen in pakchoi, causing the enantiomer fraction (EF) of the enantiomers to change from 0.50 to 0.42 in 7 days. However, R-(+)-pydiflumetofen was degraded faster than S-(−)-pydiflumetofen in soil, causing the EF of the enantiomers to change from 0.49 to 0.52 in 21 days. This study provides a method for monitoring pydiflumetofen enantiomer residues, which is crucial for improving risk assessments and the development of chiral pesticides.