Enantioseparation and determination of triazole fungicides in fruit juice by aqueous biphasic system coupled with HPLC-MS/MS

The aqueous biphasic system based on choline ionic liquids and ethylene/propylene oxide copolymer coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry was developed for the simultaneous determination of the enantiomers of two fungicides: myclobutanil and tebuconazole. The influence of mass fractions of ionic liquids and the copolymer on the extraction efficiency of the target fungicides was investigated. The analytes are mainly concentrated in the bottom, copolymer-rich phase. The extraction efficiencies of the selected fungicides were significantly affected by the concentrations of the copolymer, and their extraction efficiencies decreased with the higher mass fractions of the copolymer, while the mass fraction of ionic liquids had little effect on their extraction behavior. Excellent extraction efficiency was achieved using the aqueous biphasic system based on choline L-lysinate and the copolymer. At three spiked concentrations of 0.01, 0.05, and 0.1 mg/kg, the average recoveries of the selected fungicides ranged from 80 to 89%, with the relative standard deviations in the range of 2.1-5.3%. Limits of quantitation for the enantiomers of tebuconazole and myclobutanil were 0.5 and 5.0 mu g/kg, respectively. The developed system could be successfully applied to the analysis of triazole fungicides residue in real samples.

Automated summary

An aqueous biphasic system based on choline ionic liquids and a copolymer was developed for the simultaneous determination of enantiomers of two fungicides. The extraction efficiency of the fungicides was significantly affected by the copolymer concentration, with little effect from the ionic liquid concentration. The system showed excellent extraction efficiency and could be applied to the analysis of triazole fungicides residue in real samples.