Recent Advances in the Determination of Pesticides in Environmental Samples by Capillary Electrophoresis

Nowadays, owing to the increasing population and the attempts to satisfy its needs, pesticides are widely applied to control the quantity and quality of agricultural products. However, the presence of pesticide residues and their metabolites in environmental samples is hazardous to the health of humans and all other living organisms. Thus, monitoring these compounds is extremely important to ensure that only permitted levels of pesticide are consumed. To this end, fast, reliable, and environmentally friendly methods that can accurately analyze dilute, complex samples containing both parent substances and their metabolites are required. Focusing primarily on research published since 2010, this review summarizes the use of various sample pretreatment techniques to extract pesticides from various matrices, combined with on-line preconcentration strategies for sensitivity improvement, and subsequent capillary electrophoresis analysis.

Facile and sensitive electrochemical detection of methyl parathion based on a sensing platform constructed by the direct growth of carbon nanotubes on carbon paper

Facile and sensitive methyl parathion detection was achieved based on a novel carbon nanotube/carbon paper sensor.

Determination of currently used pesticides in biota

Although pesticides enable control of the quantity and quality of farm products and food, and help to limit diseases in humans transmitted by insects and rodents, they are regarded as among the most dangerous environmental contaminants because of their tendency to bioaccumulate, and their mobility and long-term effects on living organisms. In the past decade, more analytical methods for accurate identification and quantitative determination of traces of pesticides in biota have been developed to improve our understanding of their risk to ecosystems and humans. Because sample preparation is often the rate-determining step in analysis of pesticides in biological samples, this review first discusses extraction and clean-up procedures, after a brief introduction to the classes, and the methods used in the analysis of pesticides in biota. The analytical methods, especially chromatographic techniques and immunoassay-based methods, are reviewed in detail, and their corresponding advantages, limitations, applications, and prospects are also discussed. This review mainly covers reports published since 2008 on methods for analysis of currently used pesticides in biota.

Recent progress for capillary electrophoresis with electrochemical detection

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is an attractive technique in separation science because of its high separation performance, short analysis time and low cost. Electrochemical detection (EC) is a powerful tool for CE because of its high sensitivity. In this review, developments of CE-EC from 2008 to August, 2011 are reviewed. We choose papers of innovative and novel results to demonstrate the newest and most important progress in CE-EC.