Determination of antifouling pesticides and their degradation products in marine sediments by means of ultrasonic extraction and HPLC-APCI-MS.

A method has been developed for the simultaneous determination of antifouling pesticides and some of their degradation products, e.g. dichlofluanid, diuron, demethyldiuron, 1-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)urea, sea-nine, Irgarol 1051 and one of its metabolites (2-methylthio-4-tert-butylamino-s-triazine) in marine sediments. The determination of these compounds in sediment samples was performed by means of methanolic ultrasonic extraction then clean-up on an Isolute ENV+ solid phase extraction (SPE) cartridge. The resulting extract was then analyzed by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with atmospheric-pressure chemical-ionization mass spectrometry in negative and positive ion modes (HPLC-APCI-MS). Recovery ranged from 54-109% for the antifouling agents and their degradation products. The determination limits for the different compounds varied between 0.2 and 1.6 microg kg(-1) dry sediment. The analytical procedure was successfully applied to the determination of these pesticides and their degradation products in marine sediment samples from different marinas of the Catalan coast. The compounds detected were: diuron, dichlofluanid, demethyldiuron, sea-nine, and Irgarol 1051. The highest concentrations were those of diuron and Irgarol 1051--136 and 88 microg kg(-1), respectively.