Multiresidue Analysis of Eight Acaricides in Fruits

A multiresidue analytical method was developed for eight acaricides including benzoximate, clofentezine, fenazaquin, fenothiocarb, fenpyroximate, hexythiazox, pyridaben, and tebufenpyrad in four major fruits using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). All the confounds were extracted with acetone from apple, pear, grape, and citrus samples. The extract was diluted with saline water, and n-heaxane partition was followed to recover the acaricides. Florisil column chromatography was employed to further purify the sample extract. HPLC with ultraviolet absorption detection, using an octadecylsilyl column under the isocratic mobile phase of acetonitrile/water mixture, was successfully applied to separate and quantitate all the compounds in the purified extract. Recoveries of the eight acaricides from for fortified samples ranged 86.4~97.0%. Relative standard deviations of the analytical method were all less than 10%. Detection limits of the method were in the range of 0.02~0.05 mg/kg. The proposed method was reproducible and sensitive enough to evaluate the terminal residue of the eight acaricides in the fruit harvest.