Compound-specific chlorine isotope analysis of the herbicides atrazine, acetochlor and metolachlor

A gas chromatography-single quadrupole mass spectrometry method was developed and validated for compound-specific chlorine isotope analysis (Cl-CSIA) of three chlorinated herbicides, atrazine, acetochlor and metolachlor, which are widespread contami-nants in the environment. For each compound, the two most abundant ions containing chlorine (202/200 for atrazine, 225/223 for acetochlor and 240/238 for metolachlor) and a dwell time of 30 ms were determined as optimized MS parameters. A Limit of Precise Isotope Analysis for ethyl acetate solutions of 10 mg/L atrazine, 10 mg/L acetochlor and 5 mg/L metolachlor could be reached with an associated uncertainty between 0.5 and 1‰. To this end, samples were measured tenfold and bracketed with two calibration standards which covered a wide range of δ37Cl values and whose amplitudes matched those of the samples within 20% tolerance. The method was applied to investigate chlorine isotope fractionation during alkaline hydrolysis of metolachlor, which showed a shift in...