Determination of fluazifop-butyl and fluazifop with the use of disposable solid phase extraction columns for selective clean-up and concentration of Soxhlet soil extracts

Summary An analytical procedure based on the solid phase extraction technology has been developed for the clean-up and concentration of Soxhlet soil extracts containing fluazifop-butyl and fluazifop by the use of a phenyl phase cartridge. No liquid-liquid partition has been used; thus the consumption of organic solvents was limited and the use of chlorinated solvents could be avoided. Quantification has been performed by ion-pair HPLC. Despite the large difference in polarity the recoveries of both the compounds from spiked soil samples between 0.1 and 1 g/g was higher than 90%. The solid-phase adsorption technology resulted in a very effective methodology of clean-up in the case of the polar compound fluazifop, for which a second disposable column with a cyanopropyl phase has been used, and was fairly satisfactory for fluazifop-butyl. The detection limits were less than 0.04 g/g and 0.10 g/g, respectively for fluazifop and fluazifop-butyl.