Passive and grab sampling methods to assess pesticide residues in water. A review

Abstract

There is actually health concern about the uncontrolled use of pesticides, as some banned pesticides continue to be used in many regions of the world, especially in Latin America. Advanced analytical methods are thus required to detect pesticides in water. Common pesticide analysis is done by grab sampling of water volumes ranging from milliliters to liters. Grab sampling is suitable for moderate to high pesticide concentrations, but fails to detect trace levels and shows only a single-time snapshot of pesticide levels. Alternatively, passive sampling extracts and collects water directly in situ, thus allowing time for pollutants to be accumulated into the sampler. Passive sampling has recently become a major tool for extraction of organic contaminants in surface water, groundwater and wastewater. Diverse pollutants have been studied, such as pesticides, illicit and prescription drugs, metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and cyanobacterial microcystin toxins. This review describes the main devices of passive sampling, used for the extraction of pesticides in waters.