Development of an official method for measurement of fluazinam residues for quarantine of imported and exported horticultural products

This experiment was conducted to establish an official determination method to measure fluazinam residue in horticultural crops for import and export using GC-ECD/MS. Fluazinam residue was extracted with acetone from fresh samples of four representative horticultural products, the vegetable crops green pepper and kimchi cabbage, and the fruit crops mandarin and apple. The acetone extract was diluted with saline water and n-hexane partitioning was used to recover fluazinam from the aqueous phase. Florisil column chromatography was additionally employed for final purification of the extract. Fluazinam was separated and quantitated by GC with ECD using a DB-17 capillary column. The horticultural crops were fortified with three different concentrations of fluazinam. Mean recoveries ranged from 82.5% to 99.9% in the four crops. The coefficients of variation were less than 10.0%. The quantitative limit of fluazinam detection was 0.004 mgㆍkg^-1 in the four crop samples. GC/MS with selected-ion monitoring was also used to confirm the suspected residue. This analytical method was reproducible and sensitive enough to measure the residue of fluazinam in horticultural commodities for import and export.