Elsevier Trace Determination of Pesticides and their Degradation Products in Water

The book covers a critical compilation of analytical methods used for the monitoring of pesticides and their degradation products in water. It contains up-to-date material and is the direct result of the authors' experience in the field of pesticide analysis. The book is structured in six chapters, starting from general aspects of pesticides like usage, physicochemical parameters and occurrence in the environment. A second chapter is devoted to sampling from water matrices, stability methods of pesticides in water and quality assurance issues. The general chromatographic methods for pesticides are reported, including the newly developed electrophoresis methods and GC-MS and LC-MS confirmatory analytical methods. Sample preparation methodologies, including off-line and on-line techniques are described in the next two chapters, with a comprehensive list of examples of pesticides and many metabolites, including the use of different GC-methods and LC-methods. The final chapter is devoted to the development of biological techniques, immunoassays and biosensors, for the trace determination of pesticides in water samples. The book answers one of the key problems in pesticide analysis: the diversity of chemical functional groups, with varying polarity and physicochemical properties. Pesticides and their metabolites have received particular attention during the last few years in environmental trace-organic analysis. For instance, in the case of groundwater, the use of pesticides has become a cause for concern. Under the right conditions, pesticides, such as fertilizer nitrogen, can move through the soil into groundwater, a phenomenon once thought improbable. The movement of agrochemicals in surface water flow can be, in some instances, a major problem, specially in the case of water soluble pesticides that are generally transported to estuarine and coastal waters. Estuarine waters feature gradients of both pollutant conce