Study of semi-automated solid-phase extraction for the determination of acaricide residues in honey by liquid chromatography

A solid-phase extraction (SPE) method followed by a reversed-phase high-per formance liquid chromatography (HPLC) procedure is reported for the assay o f a wide polarity range acaricide residues in honey. After selection of sui table chromatographic and detection conditions, most steps of the SPE proce dure that may affect to the recovery were investigated. Honey sample was bu ffered at pH 6 and then applied to the preconditioned C, sorbent. A washing step was performed with I ml of a mixture of tetrahydrofuran (THF)-phospha te buffer (10:90, v/v) and finally, the analytes were eluted with 1 ml of T HF. The extract was evaporated to dryness, reconstituted in mobile phase an d chromatographed on a reversed-phase C-18 column with diode array detectio n. The recoveries of the more polar acaricides were higher than 80% and 60- 70% for the more apolar ones, Limits of detection obtained ranged from 1 to 200 ng/g. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.