ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the sample preparation and analytical techniques for the determination of pesticides in water samples. The need to detect trace levels of pesticides in water samples usually requires a selective preconcentration to produce samples suitable for analysis. Therefore, sample preparation is a key step in the analysis of pesticides in water. The extraction techniques employed are based on the enrichment in liquid (liquid–liquid extraction) or in solid phases (solid-phase extraction). In the last ten years, new analytical techniques have been developed together with the improvement of the existing ones, looking for miniaturization, automation, simplification and the use of low amounts of organic solvent (or solvent-free techniques) during the sample preparation step. The number of publications on the analysis of pesticides in water are enormous; for this reason, the most commonly used methods for the analysis of pesticides in water in the last ten years are presented in this chapter in order to provide the reader with an overview on the state of the art including some representative works.
