Simultaneous determination of carbaryl and azinphos-methyl in water by first-derivative synchronous spectrofluorimetry

A method is proposed for the simultaneous determination of the pesticides carbaryl (CBL) and azinphos-methyl (AZM) in water by first-derivative synchronous spectrofluorimetry. It is based on the alkaline hydrolysis of both pesticides to their metabolites 1-naphthol (from CBL) and anthranilic acid (from AZM). The constant wavelength difference chosen to optimize the determination is Δλ=λ_em?λ_ex=103 nm. CBL is measured at 302/405 nm and AZM at 333/436 nm. The calibration graphs are linear between 2.0 and 500.0 ng/ml for CBL and between 1.2 and 500.0 ng/ml for AZM with detection limits of 0.62 ng/ml and 0.35 ng/ml, respectively. The precision of the method (RSD) is 2.4% at the 80.0 ng/ml level for CBL and 2.5% at the 80.0 ng/ml level for AZM. The method is applied to the determination of both analytes in samples of natural waters.