Multiclass/multiresidue method for monitoring widely applied plant protecting agents in air during field dispersion work

A multiclass/multiresidue method for surveying the uptake of plant protecti ng chemicals by inhalation during field spraying work is described. Eleven nowadays mainly dispersed compounds, which cover a wide range of chemical p roperties, are analysed in air with personal active sampling and in one sin gle analytical run. This has the advantage, that one basic method only need s to be implemented, calibrated and validated in a laboratory to perform va rying monitoring tasks without changing the method itself. Samples were tak en with Tenax sorbent tubes operated to collect the active compounds simult aneously in the vapour state, in aerosol state or bound to particles. The p rocedure consists of four unit operations only: sampling, elution, dilution and HPLC measurement, and is described in SOP-format. The limits of quanti fication, calculated as method detection limits, were between 1 and 9 mug m (-3) based on 1 m(3) air volume sampled (8 h). Method performance was chara cterised by way of generated test atmospheres and field spraying trials. (C ) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.