Supercritical fluid chromatography separation of chiral pesticides: Unique capabilities to study cyhalothrin and metalaxyl as examples

Abstract

Evaluation of chiral pesticides remains a frequently neglected matter in routine food control laboratories. This fact is due to the existence of many residue definitions but also due to the lack of robust instrumental methods for the evaluation of these isomeric compounds. However, supercritical fluid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (SFC-ESI-MS/MS) has been demonstrated to perform fast and highly efficient separations without the need to change the mobile phase employed in multiresidue pesticide analyses. Regarding chiral stationary phase columns, the polysaccharide-based ones clearly demonstrate the best separation technology. Two polysaccharide-based columns were tested in this study, and the robustness of their combination with SFC was verified. The enantiomers of lambda-cyhalothrin and metalaxyl were studied precisely due to their markedly distinct toxicity and enantioselectivity. Furthermore, the acute reference dose for gamma-cyhalothrin is half in comparison with its enantiomer (0.0025 and 0.005 mg/kg respectively), which is present in the lambda-cyhalothin residue definition. These enantiomers were analyzed in terms of linearity, reproducibility, and matrix effects in four representative matrices (tomato, orange, leek, and cayenne). Additionally, field tests under greenhouse conditions for these compounds were performed. The results obtained after different sample collections revealed a similar degradation in lambda-cyhalothrin enantiomers (R, S, S, and S, R, R) but not in the case of metalaxyl-M (mefenoxam) where the degradation in tomato was 2 to 6 times less in comparison with its S-enantiomer.