Identification and monitoring of thiabendazole transformation products in water during Fenton degradation by LC-QTOF-MS

This work enabled the identification of major transformation products (TPs) of thiabendazole (TBZ) during the Fenton process. TBZ is a benzimidazole fungicide widely used around the world to prevent and/or treat a wide range of fruit and vegetable pathogens. The degradation of the parent molecule and the identification of the main TPs were carried out in demineralized water. The TPs were monitored and identified by liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC-QTOF-MS/MS). Up to 12 TPs were tentatively identified. Most of them were eliminated after 15 min of treatment time and originated from numerous hydroxylations undergone by the aromatic ring during the initial stages of the process.