The solid phase extraction method has been developed and applied for the simultaneous analysis of the five most commonly used triazine pesticides. The analysis was conducted using a liquid chromatography-photodiode array detector, which was first optimized to improve the limit of quantification and detection. The extraction parameters (conditioning solvent and sample volume) that affect the recovery of the analytes for solid phase extraction were optimized. The recoveries obtained were between 107 and 111%. The limit of detection ranged between 0.668 and 1.16 μg/L and the limit of quantification ranged between 2.01 and 3.54 μg/L. Good precision with a relative standard deviation of less than 8% in all compounds was achieved. The developed and validated method was then applied to river water, wastewater and sludge samples from around KwaZulu-Natal. The quantified concentrations ranged from 8.35 to 2820 μg/L, 2.41-48.7 μg/L and 3.20-65.0 μg/L in sludge, wastewater, and river water respectively.
Keywords: Environmental samples; Liquid chromatography-photodiode array detector; Solid phase extraction; Triazine herbicides.
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