Supercritical fluid extraction of the pesticides carbosulfan and imidacloprid from process dust waste

Large amounts of contaminated process dust remain from the procedure of pesticide treatments applied to seed pellets. A pilot study in analytical-scale supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) was performed to determine the possibility of using supercritical carbon dioxide for the extraction of the nonpolar insecticide carbosulfan and the more polar insecticide imidacloprid present in contaminated dust waste, at concentrations of up to 20% (w/w). The effects of various experimental conditions, such as temperature, flow rate, and addition of modifier, on the recovery of the analytes were evaluated by extracting the pesticides both from spiked support material and from real dust samples. It was found that carbosulfan could easily be extracted from the dust waste within 30 min at 138 bar and 40 degrees C with a recovery of 98.9% (RSD = 2.3%, n = 10), compared to values obtained with a validated liquid extraction method. A sufficient removal of the more polar substance imidacloprid required the addition of a modifier, and the results showed a strong dependence of the extraction efficiency on the choice of modifier. Extractions at 276 bar and 80 degrees C with a solvent consisting of supercritical carbon dioxide modified with methanol (5%) gave a recovery of 97.0% (RSD = 3.6%, n = 10) using a 40 min extraction time. The results indicate that it seems to be possible to use process-scale SFE for the decontamination of pesticides from dust waste. The conditions outlined also permit analytical determinations of the two insecticides based on a combination of SFE and liquid chromatography.