Multimethod Applying GC-AED to Water Samples

Abstract

Atomic emission detection (AED) provides high element specific detection of all compounds amenable to GC. Heteroatoms like fluorine, chlorine, bromine, nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorous, which are important elements in pesticide residue analysis, are of major interest. A main drawback of AED is the lower sensitivity especially for the important nitrogen trace. For this reason, more sensitive detection can be achieved by injection of larger volumes or higher concentration of sample extracts, because matrix compounds were usually registered only in the carbon, hydrogen and oxygen traces. This chapter focuses on recent developments from the authors’ laboratory in order to demonstrate the potential and limitations of GC-AED for its application to multiresidue analysis in water samples with special reference to phenoxyalkanoic acids, chlorinated pesticides and triazine herbicides. A list of retention data and detection limits of more than 400 pesticides is given in an appendix.