Characterization of the composition of plant protection products in different formulation types employing suspect screening and unknown approaches

What is it about?

A research based on ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) coupled to quadrupole (Q)-Orbitrap mass analyser was successfully applied to characterize the composition (in terms of the presence of co-formulants) of six different plant protection products (PPPs) with antifungal activity. Non-targeted approaches (based on suspect and unknown analysis) allowed to identify a total of 10 compounds as potential co-formulants, of which 6 (glyceryl monostearate, 1-monopalmitin, dimethyl sulfoxide, N, N-dimethyldecanamide, hexaethylene glycol and 1,2-benzisothiazol-3(2H)-one) were confirmed by injecting analytical standards. Finally, these compounds were quantified in the PPPs in a wide range of concentrations, between 0.04 (dimethyl sulfoxide) and 19.00 g L−1 (glyceryl monostearate), highlighting the feasibility of the proposal analytical methodology. Moreover, notable differences among the types of formulations of PPPs were achieved, revealing that emulsifiable concentrate (EC) and emulsion in water (EW) were the formulations which the largest number of co-formulants (4 out of 6 detected compounds).

Featured Image