High Spatial Resolution Chemical Imaging of Inorganic and Organometallic Pesticides

Some pesticide chemicals are based on inorganic elements such as sulfur, copper (i.e. copper sulfate ‘Bordeaux mixture’, copper hydroxide, and copper oxychloride), and arsenic salts (i.e. lead arsenate, calcium arsenate, sodium arsenite), or they contain an inorganic element in their chemical structure such as the organometallic pesticides based on manganese dithiocarbamate (maneb), manganese and zinc dithiocarbamate (mancozeb), organotin compounds (triphenyltin, tributyltin, and tricyclohexyltin), herbicide MSMA (monosodique methyl arsenate), or the brominated compounds deltamethryn and bromoxynil. Using state-of-the art micro-analytical methods, inorganic elements can be probed with high spatial resolution, and high sensitivity, to reveal their tissue and cell distribution to understand their mechanisms of toxicity at their site of action.