SIMULTANEOUS DETERMINATION OF TRIAZINES INCLUDING ATRAZINE AND THEIR MAJOR METABOLITES HYDROXYATRAZINE, DESETHYLATRAZINE, AND DEISOPROPYLATRAZINE IN NATURAL-WATERS

This paper describes the simultaneous quantification of the herbicides atrazine (AT), simazine (SIM), terbutylazine (TER), propazine (PROP), and prometryne (FROM) and their major metabolites hydroxyatrazine (AT OH), hydroxypropazine (PROH), desethylatrazine (DEA), and deisopropyla trazine (DIA) in natural waters at the low nanograms per liter concent ration level (3-1500 ng/L). These herbicides and their metabolites wer e determined in surface water, groundwater, rainwater, roof runoff, an d wastewater, The compounds were enriched on graphitized carbon black (GCB) and analyzed with reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromat ography (HPLC) using a diode array UV detector (DAD). The recoveries f or hydroxyatrazine and hydroxypropazine from spiked Nanopure water wer e 93 +/- 6.9% and 92 +/- 7.0%, respectively, For all other compounds, the recovery ranged between 97 +/- 4.8% and 101 +/- 3.3% in Nanopure w ater (fortified with 50-900 ng/L) and between 88 +/- 9.0% and 108 +/- 13% in lake water (spiked with 50-150 ng/L), respectively, The detecti on limits were 2-7 ng/L in pure water and 3-11 ng/L in environmental s amples, The mean relative standard deviation (RSD) was 6.2% (ranging f rom 0.9% to 15%) in natural waters. The method was compared to gas chr omatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) techniques using deuterioatrazin e as an internal standard. Both methods produced consistent results fo r the parent compounds, while the HPLC method was more precise for the determination of the metabolite concentrations. The HPLC method descr ibed allows for the first time the routine quantification of very low concentrations (<20 ng/L) of hydroxyatrazine together with other triaz ines in a single analytical procedure.