Stereoselective separation and determination of triadimefon and triadimenol in wheat, straw, and soil by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.

A sensitive and rapid analytical method was developed for simultaneous determination of triadimefon (TF) and triadimenol (TN) stereoisomers in wheat, straw, and soil by liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The direct enantioseparation of TF and TN was performed on a Lux cellulose-1 column packed with cellulose-tris-(3,5-dimethylphenylcarbamate). The effects of mobile-phase composition on the separation were investigated and stereoisomeric elution orders were confirmed with a polarimeter detector. The pesticides were extracted from samples with acetonitrile and cleaned up by solid-phase extraction or activated carbon. Based on the developed stereoselective LC-MS/MS method, for TF and TN stereoisomers, good linearities were obtained over the concentration range of 0.003-4 mg/L; recoveries were 84.2-102.7% in wheat, 84.0-104.0% in straw, and 85.2-106.8% in soil at spiked concentrations of 0.007-2.0 mg/kg; intra-day and inter-day assay precisions were below 12.2%. Limits of detection (LODs) and limits of quantification (LOQs) in wheat, straw, and soil were 0.001-0.005 mg/kg and 0.007-0.02 mg/kg, respectively. Finally, the method was successfully applied to detect TF and TN stereoisomers in wheat, straw, and soil samples from residual trials in farm.