Simultaneous Determination of Abamectin and Milbemectin Residues in Fruits

An analytical method was developed to determine abamectin and milbemectin residues in apple, pear, and citrus using HPLC with ultraviolet absorption detection. Abamectin and milbemectin were extracted with methanol from apple, pear, and citrus samples. The extract was diluted with saline water and dichloromethane partition was followed to recover the compounds from the aqueous phase. Florisil column chromatography and aminopropyl solid-phase extraction were employed as cleanup methods to remove most of co-extractives from the sample extract. Reverse-phase HPLC using an octadecylsilyl column was successfully applied to separate and quantitate abamectin and milbemectin residues in sample extracts at the wavelength of 245 nm. Recoveries of abamectin and milbemectin from fortified samples ranged 80.4~90.3% and 90.9~96.8%, respectively. Relative standard deviations of the analytical method were less than 10% for both acaricides. Detection limit of the analytical method was 0.003 mg/kg sample for all the analytes. The proposed method was reproducible and sensitive enough to evaluate terminal residues of abamectin and milbemectin in apple, pear, and citrus.