Monitoring of N-methyl carbamate pesticide residues in water using hollow fibre supported liquid membrane and solid phase extraction

The aim of this work was to develop a method for the determination of N-methyl carbamates in water involving hollow fibre supported liquid membrane (HFSLM) and solid phase extraction (SPE) as sample preparation methods. Four N-methyl carbamate pesticides, aldicarb, carbaryl, carbofuran and methiocarb sulfoxide, were simultaneously extracted and analysed by a liquid chromatograph with a diode array detector (LC-UV/DAD) and a liquid chromatograph coupled to a ion trap quadrupole mass spectrometer (LC–ESI–MS). The high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) separation of carabamate extracts was performed on a C18 column with water–acetonitrile as the mobile phase. The mass spectrometry analyses were carried out in the positive mode, operating under both the selected ion monitoring (SIM) and full scan modes. The solid phase recoveries of the extracts ranged between 8% and 98%, with aldicarb having the highest recoveries, followed by carbaryl, carbofuran and methiocarb had the lowest recovery. The HFSLM recovery ranged between 8% and 58% and the order of recovery was similar to the SPE trend. Factors controlling the efficiency of the HFSLM extraction such as sample pH, stripping phase pH, enrichment time, stirring speed as well as organic solvent used for entrapment of analytes, were optimised to achieve the highest enrichment factors.