Determination of herbicides and its metabolite in soil and water samples by capillary electrophoresis-laser induced fluorescence detection using microwave-assisted derivatization.

Methods were developed to determine glufosinate (GLUF), glyphosate (GLYP) and its metabolite, aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) by capillary electrophoresis-laser induced fluorescence detection using 5-(4,6-dichlorotriazinylamino) fluorescein (DTAF) and fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) as the derivatizing reagents. To accelerate the labeling speed, a microwave-assisted derivatization method was adopted. The derivatizing reaction time was reduced to 180 and 150 s for DTAF and FITC, whose reaction time for conventional labeling was 50 min and 5 h, respectively. The optimum separation conditions for derivatives were as follows: a back ground electrolyte (BGE) of 30 mmol L(-1) sodium tetraborate containing 15 mmol L(-1) brij-35, hydrodynamic injection 15 s and a 10 kV separation voltage. Under these conditions, the LODs (S/N = 3) for DTAF derivatives were 0.32, 0.19 and 0.15 nmol L(-1) for GLUF, GLYP, and AMPA, respectively. The LODs (S/N = 3) for FITC derivatives were 2.60, 3.88 and 2.42 nmol L(-1) for GLUF, GLYP, and AMPA, respectively. The applicability of the developed method was demonstrated by the detection of the above herbicides and metabolite in water and soil samples.