Determination of N-methylcarbamate pesticides in vegetables by poly(methacrylic acid-co-ethylene glycol dimethacrylate) monolith microextraction coupled with high performance liquid chromatography.

A simple, rapid and sensitive method for simultaneous determination of three N-methylcarbamate pesticides (carbaryl, pirimicarb, and isoprocarb) in vegetables was developed by coupling polymer monolith microextraction (PMME) to high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). A poly(methacrylic acid-co-ethylene glycol dimethacrylate) monolith was selected as the extraction medium for PMME. To achieve optimum extraction performance, several parameters were investigated, including desorption solvent, desorption flow rate, sample flow rate, sample volume, sample pH values, inorganic salt and organic solvent content of the sample solution. Under the optimum experimental conditions, the method provides an acceptable linearity (5-5000μg/kg), low limits of detection (0.36-2.6μg/kg), good precision (intra-day relative standard deviations<2.53%, inter-day relative standard deviations <6.36%). Finally, the developed method was successfully applied to the determination of N-methylcarbamate pesticides in vegetables, and the trueness was evaluated by recovery experiments. The obtained relative recoveries were in the range of 70.4-98.5%. This PMME method integrates sample extraction, purification, and preconcentration of analytes into one single step and it also has several advantages such as solvent-free extraction, small sample volume, high enrichment, convenience, and flexibility operation.