Abstract

The purpose of the research has been to develop and apply ‘green’ analytical methodologies to control and monitor the level of currently used pesticides from different chemical groups in aqueous samples. For extraction of analytes solid - phase microextraction (SPME) and dispersive liquid - liquid microextraction (DLLME) have been applied and compared. For SPME, commonly used materials for coating fibers include: polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), polyacrylate (PA) and also mixtures of: polydimethylsiloxane and polydivinylbenzene (PDMS–DVB), carbowax and polydivinylbenzene (CW–DVB), polydivinylbenzene and carbowax and polydimethylsiloxane (DVB-CAR-PDMS) were compared. For DLLME, different mixtures of extraction and disperser solvents were compared and evaluated. For the identification and quantitative determination gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was applied. The analytical procedures were validated and applied to natural water samples from river, lake, sea, pond, well, canal and rain collected around Glasgow region (Scotland, UK), Tricity area and central Masuria (Poland). The results of analysis of collected water samples in the study area indicate a potential risk of environmental contamination, because detected concentration levels of pesticides were higher than those established by the European Union legislation. The developed methodologies have proved to be selective, sensitive and precise for the simultaneous determination of currently used pesticides from various chemical groups. Optimized analytical methods are simpler, lower cost and less labor intensive sample preparation techniques than conventional methods. The results show that the selectivity of developed methodologies are sufficient to analyze environmental samples and can be used in the monitoring studies to control the content of selected pesticides.

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