Collaborative study of the determination of endosulfan, endosulfan sulfate, tetrasul, and tetradifon residues in fresh fruits and vegetables.

A method for the determination of endosulfan I, endosulfan II, endosulfan sulfate, tetrasul, and tetradifon residues in fresh fruits and vegetables was studied collaboratively. The method consists of extraction of the product with acetonitrile, ether and elution from a Florisil column with mixtures of hexane, methylene chloride, and acetonitrile, and determination of the residues by electron capture gas-liquid chromatography. This method was studied by 8 collaborators, using apples and cucumbers as the samples. Each sample was spiked with 2 levels of each pesticide. The average per cent recoveries for apples and cucumbers, respectively were as follows: endosulfan I, 103.6 and 101.5; endosulfan II, 102.9 and 100.0; endosulfan sulfate, 100.9 and 92.9; tetrasul, 98.8 and 102.2; and tetradifon, 106.4 and 101.9. The method has been adopted as official first action.