SIMPLIFICATION OF ANALYTICAL METHODS IN PESTICIDE-RESIDUE ANALYSIS BYLIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY ELECTROSPRAY-IONIZATION MASS-SPECTROMETRY AND TANDEM MASS-SPECTROMETRY

This report presents a historic, scientific, and economic overview of why mass spectrometry (MS) is rapidly becoming a routine detector for trace analysis of pesticide residues in the regulatory area, Liquid ch romatography/electrospray ionization MS and tandem MS dramatically sim plify cleanup procedures, reducing not only sample analysis time, but even more important, method development time. Examples include direct determination of imidazolinones in water at 1 ppb, determination of im azethapyr and its metabolites in crop commodities, and determination o f imazethapyr in soil.