Simultaneous quantitative determination of thirteen urea pesticides at sub-ppb levels on a Zorbax SB-C18 column

Abstract A simple multi-residue method is described for simultaneously determining ten urea and three benzoylurea pesticides residues in drinking water with quantitation limits below the European regulatory limit of 0.1 μg/l. The residues were extracted from drinking water with dichloromethane and analysed by HPLC on a Zorbax 5 μm SB-C 18 column with diode array detection (DAD) at 240 nm. Recoveries were determined by spiking drinking water with 13 pesticides (benzthiazuron, metoxuron, monuron, fluometuron, isoproturon, diuron, linuron, chloroxuron, chlorbromuron, diflubenzuron, neburon, triflumuron and flucycloxuron) at the 0.05–0.50 μg/l level.