Determination of Monocrotophos Residues by HPLC

An analytical method was developed to determine monocrotophos residues in apple, citrus, and soil using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with ultraviolet absorption detection. Monocrotophos was extracted with acetone from apple, citrus and moist soil samples. The extract was concentrated, added with saline water, and subjected to n-hexane washing to remove nonpolar co-extractives. Dichloromethane partition was then followed to recover monocrotophos from the aqueous phase. Silica gel column chromatography was employed to further purify the extract prior to HPLC determination. Reverse-phase HPLC using an oct-adecylsilyl column was successfully applied to separate and quantitate the monocrotophos residue in sample extracts at the wavelength of 230 nm. Overall recoveries of monocrotophos from fortified samples averaged $95.3{\pm}2.1%$ (n=6), $970{\pm}0.7%$ (n=6), and $92.8{\pm}4.3%$ (n=12) for apple, citrus, and soil, respectively. The proposed method was quite reproducible and sensitive enough to replace the troublesome gas-liquid chromatographic analysis for monocrotophos residues.