Conventional liquid chromatography reverse-phase conditions with a UV-vis detector used to separate and detect the active ingredient in a commercial agricultural fungicide formulation
Agilent Technologies Europe has announced a new application of analytical instruments to routinely and fully characterise complex agricultural formulations.
Until now, analysing the broad range of components normally found in complex agricultural formulations has posed a challenge.
Gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy (GC/MS) is the method of choice for identifying inert, volatile components, while liquid chromatography/mass spectroscopy (LC/MS) is the appropriate choice for identifying biologically active components, along with additives such as surfactants and polar compounds designed to enhance the efficacy of the product.
Agilent applications chemists used conventional liquid chromatography reverse-phase conditions with a UV-vis detector to easily separate and detect the active ingredient - triforine (CAS registry number 26644-46-2) - in a commercial agricultural fungicide formulation.
The optically active triforine elutes as two chromatographic peaks at 7.55 and 7.76 minutes.
These two peaks contain mirror-image pairs of the triforine optical isomers.
No extensive sample preparation or cleanup was needed to separate the active ingredient from the rest of the sample.
Agilent chemists also studied two other tools for routine analysis of the same agricultural formulation: fast and powerful GC/MS to analyse volatile components and electrospray ionisation liquid chromatography/mass spectroscopy (ESI-LC/MS) to analyse nonvolatile components.
GC/MS provides information on low molecular weight compounds that are volatile, nonionic and thermally stable.
The tests supplied detailed information about expected compounds in the mixture along with unexpected impurities and breakdown products that can affect product quality.
Complementing GC/MS, ESI-LC/MS provides information on compounds that are nonvolatile, ionic, polar, thermally labile and contain high molecular weight.
Combining these two techniques allowed full characterisation of the complex chemical formulation.
For further information, request Agilent application notes 'Analysis of the active compound in an agricultural fungicide formulation by liquid chromatography', Agilent publication number 5988-6686EN, and 'Analysis of components, contaminants, and impurities in fungicide formulations by GC/MS and LC/MS', Agilent publication number 5988-6085EN.
These notes are available without charge from any Agilent sales office or its website (see above).
