Simultaneous enantioselective determination of triazole fungicide difenoconazole and its main chiral metabolite in vegetables and soil by normal-phase high-performance liquid chromatography.

Herein is reported, for the first time, a simple and highly sensitive chiral high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for the simultaneous quantitative determination of difenoconazole stereoisomers and their hydroxylated metabolite difenoconazole alcohol (CGA-205375) enantiomers in vegetables and soil matrix. The separation of difenoconazole and CGA-205375 including their simultaneous enantioseparation was studied using four different polysaccharide-type chiral stationary phases (CSPs) in combination with n-hexane-polar organic alcohols mobile phase. Chiralcel OJ consisting of 25 % of cellulose tris(4-methylbenzoate) coated on wide-pore polysaccharide silica gel exhibited higher resolving ability compared to cellulose tris(3,5-dimethylphenylcarbamate) (Chiralcel OD) as well as to its similar amylose derivative (Chiralpak AD) CSPs for this particular set of chiral analytes. Baseline separation and simultaneous enantioseparation of difenoconazole and its metabolite CGA-205375 could be achieved under optimized separation conditions. Based on the established HPLC method, enantioselective analysis method for this fungicide and its main chiral metabolite in vegetables and soil matrix were developed and validated. Parameters including the matrix effect, linearity, precision, accuracy, and stability were evaluated. Under the optimal conditions, the mean recoveries from cucumber, tomato, and soil matrix ranged from 81.65 to 94.52 %, with relative standard deviations in the range of 1.05-8.32 % for all stereoisomers. Coefficients of determination R(2) ≥ 0.998 were achieved for each enantiomer in the cucumber, tomato and soil matrix calibration curves within the range of 0.5-50 μg mL(-1). The limits of quantification for all enantiomers in three matrices were all below 0.1 μg mL(-1). The methodology was successfully applied for simultaneous enantioselective analysis of difenoconazole stereoisomers and their metabolite in the real samples, indicating its efficacy in investigating the environmental stereochemistry of difenoconazole in food and environmental matrix.