Division of Agricultural Chemicals, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New De1hi-110 012, India.
A convenient and sensitive method for the simultaneous determination of metolachlor and its five possible transformation products by High Performance Liquid Chromatography was developed. The mobile phase consisted of methanol: water (65: 35) using a RP-8 column and UV-detector at 199 nm gave the best resolution of all the components. The compounds were detected at levels as low as 0.1 μg. The mixture was extracted from soil using hexane: ethyl acetate (1: 1) and dichloromethane from water samples. The method gave quantitative recoveries and was useful for multiresidue analysis of the herbicide and its transformation products from soil and water.
