Simple, cost-effective and sensitive liquid chromatography diode array detector method for simultaneous determination of eight sulfonylurea herbicides in soya milk samples.

In this study authors propose a simple, cost-effective and sensitive liquid chromatography diode array detector (HPLC-DAD) method for the simultaneous determination of eight sulfonylurea herbicides (oxasulfuron, metsulfuron-methyl, triasulfuron, rimsulfuron, chlorsulfuron, mesosulfuron-methyl, amidosulfuron and bensulfuron-methyl) in soya milk samples. QuEChERS-based extraction procedure presents good performance for all of the analytes with recoveries in the range of 61-108% and relative standard deviations (RSD%) less than 15%. No significant matrix effect was observed thanks to application of effective zirconium-dioxide based sorbent (Z-Sep). Method LOQs for all investigated analytes were set at satisfactory low value of 10ngmL(-1) of food product. The procedure was evaluated in terms of natural samples analysis. Chlorsulfuron was determined at concentration of 14.2ngmL(-1) of soya milk product, which was qualitatively confirmed via LC coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The most important steps of procedure optimization are presented.