Monitoring of Diazinon in Soil Samples by Ion Mobility Spectrometry

Developing precise, reliable and rapid techniques for measuring hazardous materials in the environment is of crucial importance. In this paper, corona discharge ionization ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) was used for detecting and quantifying diazinon in soil samples. We optimized and calibrated a solid-liquid extraction procedure in soil and washed sand samples. Various parameters including solvent type and volume, agitation, centrifugation, solvent ionic strength and filtration were examined and the optimum condition was adopted. Results indicated that methanol was the most efficient solvent for the extraction of diazinon, recovered best by 5 minutes centrifugation at 4000 rpm after 2 hours of shaking. The recovery values for shaking and sonication were 80 and 76 for the soil sample and 89 and 80 for the sand sample, respectively. Filtration could not influence the recovery values. The method was successfully applied to three different soils, spiked with different diazinon concentrations and the obtained recovery values ranged between 95% and 104%. Overall, the proposed method is efficient enough to be routinely used for diazinon determination in soil samples.