Determination of organophosphorus pesticides in wheat flour by supercritical fluid extraction and gas chromatography with nitrogen-phosphorus detection.

Application of supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) for selective isolation of organophosphorus pesticides from a real-world matrix (wheat flour) has been described. The method uses extraction with supercritical carbon dioxide at 206.8 bar and 60 degrees C, followed by quantitation by gas chromatography with nitrogen-phosphorous detection without clean-up of the extracts. Comparison of SFE with a method currently employed for sample preparation (i.e., organic solvent extraction followed by liquid-liquid extraction and gel permeation chromatography clean-up) shows that the SFE technique simplifies the sample preparation step and speeds up the determination of organophosphorus pesticides in flour. Extraction times were 60 min for a 7 g sample size. This technique was able to determine organophosphorus pesticides (ethoprophos, diazinon, chlorpyrifos methyl, fenitrothion, parathion, phenthoate, EPN) in samples at the 10 ng/g level.