The Employ of Multiple Voltammetric Pulses for the Study of the Adsorption of Bipyridilium Pesticides in River Sediment

The multiple square‐wave voltammetry (MSWV) allied to gold microelectrode (Au‐ME) was used to establish an electroanalytical procedure for the determination of the paraquat and diquat pesticides in river sediment samples. For both pesticides, two reduction peaks, at around ?0.70 V (peak 1) and around ?1.00 V vs. Ag/AgCl 3.00 mol L^?1 (peak 2), with profile of the totally reversible redox process, were observed. The experimental and voltammetric conditions showed that the best conditions to reduce paraquat and diquat were a pH of 6.0, a frequency of 250 s^?1, a scan increment 2 mV, a square‐wave amplitude of 50 mV and pulse number of 8 pulses of potential in each step of staircase of potential. Under such conditions, the detection limit of 0.044 μg L^?1 (0.044 ppb) and 0.360 μg L^?1 (0.360 ppb ) for peak 1 and peak 2 of paraquat and 0.159 μg L^?1 (0.159 ppb) and 0.533 μg L^?1 (0.533 ppb) for peak 1 and peak 2 of diquat, respectively, were obtained. These results are an order of magnitude of about two less than those obtained and published in the literature. Also, the electroanalytical procedure proposed was applied for the determination of adsorption isotherms of pesticides on river sediments samples collected from Mogi‐Guaçu River in Sao Paulo State, Brazil. The experimental data were fitted using the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms models; and the results indicated low intensities of adsorption process of the pesticides in the samples employed with distribution coefficients (K_d) lower 5.0, and paraquat showed slightly higher affinity than diquat in the sediments. The increase in organic matter and organic carbon leads to an increase in the K_d values, and consequently an increase in the organic matter constant (K_OM) organic carbon constant (K_OC) values. All results demonstrated that isotherms “L” type in the Giles classification were obtained, indicating that sediments have a medium affinity for the pesticides, and no strong competition from the solvent used (in this case Na₂SO₄) for adsorption sites occurs.