A rapid liquid chromatography method for determination of glufosinate residue in maize after derivatisation

A rapid liquid chromatographic method for glufosinate analysis in maize samples after derivatisation has been developed. The labelled glufosinate was separated on a Kromasil C18 column (250 mm × 4.6 mm, 5 μm) and UV detection was applied at 360 nm. The optimisation of derivatisation conditions and the influence of different ion-pair reagents on the separation were discussed. The method linearity correlation coefficient was 0.9998 in concentrations ranging from 0.1 to 20 mg L−1. The level of quantification was set to 0.02 mg kg−1, and reached pesticide EU-MRLs for glufosinate in the maize samples. The proposed method was applied to the quantitative determination of glufosinate in samples with recoveries of 98.0–100.5% and RSDs of 2.13–4.13%.