High performance liquid chromatographic determination of imazalil residue in agricultural products

Abstract

A simple, rapid and reproducible residue analytical method for imazalil in fruits and vegetables has been developed. The method involved the use of an ion-exchange cartridge for sample clean up followed by high performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detector. Acetic ether was used for extraction. Bond Elut PRS and Bond Elut C18 were used for purification. The chromatography column used Inertsil ODS-3 and the mobile phase was created by acetonitrile-10 mM KH2PO3 solution (pH 2.5), in the ratio of 35:65. The detection limit is 0.01 ppm. Rape, cabbage, honeydew melon, cumquat, mango and corn were each spiked with 0.05-3.0 ppm imazalil to be compared with the recovery study. The yield was 88.7-97.9% for rape, 72.5-87.4% for cabbage, 81.4-90.5% for honeydew melon, 81.9-87.2% for cumquat, 75.0-85.3% for mango, and 86.8-99.0% for corn. When the method was applied in analyzing commercial fruits and vegetables, no imazalil residue was detected in 20 selected samples.