Analysis of the Soil Fumigant, Dimethyl Disulfide, in Swine Blood by Dynamic Headspace Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectroscopy

Plant parasites and soilborne pathogens directly reduce the overall yield of crops, vegetables, fruits, negatively impacting market demand for these products their net profitability. While preplant soil fumigation helps maintain consistent production quality high-value cash most fumigants are toxic to off-target species, including humans. Dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) has recently been introduced as a relatively low toxicity fumigant. Although DMDS exhibits compared other fumigants, it is volatile exposure can cause eye, nasal, upper respiratory tract irritation, skin nausea, dizziness, headache, fatigue. there one analysis method available from biological matrices, significant disadvantages. Hence, in this study, dynamic headspace gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy (DHS-GC-MS) was developed swine whole blood. This highly sensitive requires only three steps: 1) acid denaturation, 2) addition internal standard, 3) DHS-GC-MS analysis. The produced wide linear range 0.1 – 200 µM with an excellent limit detection 30 nM. Intra- interassay accuracy (100±14% 100±11%, respectively) precision (<5% <6% relative standard deviation, were also excellent. worked well quantify levels blood dimethyl trisulfide (DMTS)-treated (i.e., byproduct DMTS treatment) no interfering substances at or around retention time 2.7 min). simple, rapid, extremely be used quantification verify monitor following treatment (e.g., cyanide poisoning).