Pesticides having different structures and biological activities are
widely used for agricultural and non-agricultural purposes throughout
theworld.Due to theirwidespread use, pesticides need to be determined
in various environmental, such as soil, water and air. Thus, the
development of reliable methods for systematic environmental analysis
of pesticides residues is an important field of research. A wide range of
analytical techniques has been developed for their identification of these
contaminants often present at trace levels in environmental samples.
These compounds are then determined by gas chromatography (GC) or
high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with a variety of
detection systems. Since polar, non-volatile, thermally unstable or high
molarmass compounds are unsuitable for gas chromatographic analysis,
the use of high performance liquid chromatography to analyze pesticides
that are not amenable for GC determination has become a robust and
routinely applicable tool in environmental laboratories [1–3]. Tandem
mass spectrometry detection (MS–MS) is gradually becoming more
important for environmental analysis [4–13]. The electrospray ionization
(ESI) interfaces for LC-MS have been important tools in environmental
analytical chemistry, especially in the area of pesticide analyses in soil
and water [14–18]. Most of chromatographic techniques cannot
determine the low levels of contamination permitted in natural waters
without preconcentration