High Performance Liquid Chromatographic Method for Determination of Metazosulfuron Residue in Representative Crops

BACKGROUND: This study was performed to develop a single residue analytical method for new herbicide metazosulfuron in crops. METHODS AND RESULTS: Brown rice, apple, mandarin, Kimchi cabbage and soybean were selected as representative crops, and clean-up system, partition solvent and extraction solvent were optimized. Instrumental limit of quantitation (ILOQ), linearity of calibration curve and method limit of quantitation (MLOQ) were determined based on the chromatography and whole procedures. For recovery tests, brown rice, apple, mandarin, Kimchi cabbage and soybean samples were macerated and fortified with metazosulfuron standard solution at three levels (MLOQ, 10 MLOQ and 100 MLOQ). And then those were extracted with acetonitrile, concentrated, and partitioned with ethyl acetate. Then the extracts were concentrated again and cleaned-up through $NH_2$ (aminopropyl) SPE cartridge with acetone : dichloromethane (1% acetic acid) (20 : 80, v/v) before concentration and analysis with HPLC. CONCLUSION(S): ILOQ of metazosulfuron was 2 ng (S/N${\geq}$10) and good linearity was achieved between 0.05 and 12.5 mg/Kg of metazosulfuron standard solutions, with coefficients of determination of 0.9999. MLOQ was 0.02 mg/Kg. Good recoveries from 74.1 to 116.9% with coefficients of variation (C.V.) of less than 10% were obtained, regardless of sample type, which satisfies the criteria of Korea Food and Drug Administration (KFDA). Those results were reconfirmed with LC-MS (SIM). The method established in this study is simple, economic and efficient to be applied to most of crops as an official and general method for residue analysis of metazosulfuron.