Analytical Methods for Viable and Rapid Determination of Organochlorine Pesticides in Water and Soil Samples

Organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) are the potential group of chemicals used to improve agricultural productivity. The extensive use of pesticides to improve agricultural productivity played an important role in the last century. These compounds have been applied for decades in preventing, repelling or mitigating the effects of pests. OCPs are one of the most persistent organic pollutants present in the environment. Although most of OCPs have been banned in many countries because of mutagenic and carcinogenic effects, they and their metabolites are still present in the environment owing to their persistence and lipophilic properties. The toxicity, potential bioaccumulation and non-biodegradability of these compounds represent risks to the environment (FAO/WHO, 1989). Maximum admissible concentration (MAC) of pesticides and related products for drinking water is 0.1 μg L-1 for individual pesticides and 0.5 μg L-1 for total concentrations given by the European Union (EU) Drinking Water Directives (EEC, 1980). Additionally, pesticides residue in surface water must be less than 1–3 μg L-1. Moreover, because of their hydrophobicity and persistence, OCPs accumulate in soils where they are likely to be retained for many years (FAO/WHO, 1989). Therefore, determination and monitoring of OCPs in different environmental matrices are important for environment, especially for human health. Consequently, residue analyses of OCPs in waters and soils by developing analytical procedure continue to be an active area of research in recent years (Santos & Galceran, 2004). Trace analysis of OCPs in water is usually performed by gas chromatography (GC) combined with a previous an extraction or a pre-concentration step including traditional liquid–liquid extraction (LLE) (Barcelo ́, 1993, Fatoki & Awofolu, 2003; Tahboub et al., 2005), solid phase extraction (SPE) (Aguilar et al., 1996; 1997), solid phase microextraction (SPME) (Page & Lacroix, 1997; Aguilar et al., 1999; Tomkins & Barnard, 2002; Li et al., 2003; Dong et al., 2005) and the more recently developed liquid phase microextraction under different names, i.e., dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction (DLLME) (Cortada et al., 2009a; Leong & Huang, 2009; Tsai & Huang, 2009), liquid-phase microextraction (LPME) (Huang & Huang, 2007; Farahani et al., 2008), single-drop microextraction (SDME) (Cortada et al., 2009b), polymer-coated hollow fiber microextraction (PC-HFME) (Basheer et al., 2004), stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) (Leo ́n et al., 2003; Pe ́rez-Carrera et al., 2007), ultrasound