Determination of simazine in water samples by HPLC after preconcentration with diatomaceous earth

A sensitive and selective batch adsorption method is proposed for the preconcentration and determination of simazine. Simazine was preconcentrated on diatomaceous earth as an adsorbent and then determined by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Several parameters on the recovery of the analyte were investigated. The experimental results showed that it was possible to obtain quantitative analysis when the solution pH was 2 using 100 mL of validation solution containing 1.5 μg of simazine and 5 mL of ethanol as an eluent. Recovery of simazine was 89.0 ± 1.6% with a relative standard deviation for seven determinations of 1.5% under optimum conditions. The maximum preconcentration factor was 100 for simazine when 500 mL of sample solution volume was used. The linear range of calibration curve was 1–200 ng mL−1 with a correlation coefficient of 0.996 and the detection limit (3S/N) was 0.3 ng mL−1. The capacity of the adsorbent was also examined and found to be 1.1 mg g−1 for simazine. The proposed method was successfully applied to the determination of simazine in river water with high precision and accuracy.