DETERMINATION OF PESTICIDES IN THE RHIZOME OF TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINES BY GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY WITH ELECTRON CAPTURE DETECTION

A simple and efficient gas chromatography method for the determination of 27 organochlorine and pyrethroid pesticides in traditional Chinese medicine was developed. Pesticide residues were extracted from the samples by oscillation and ultrasound, and purified by gel permeation chromatography and florisil solid phase extraction. The analysis was performed by gas chromatography with micro-electron capture detection. The purification conditions, such as the extraction and elution solvents, extraction methodology, and gel permeation chromatography conditions, were optimized. Traditional Chinese medicines were purified by different methods based on their composition. Under optimized conditions, the calibration graph was linear from 10 to 500 mu g/L and the correlation coefficients varied from 0.9958 to 0.9997. The detection limits of these pesticides were between 0.09 and 1.82 mu g/kg. The recovery of the pesticides spiked in various samples at four concentrations ranged from 73.2% to 106.4%, with relative standard deviations between 1.0% and 14.0%. This study indicates that the method is useful for determining pesticides in rhizome traditional Chinese medicines.