Chiral determination of a novel acaricide cyflumetofen enantiomers in cucumber, tomato, and apple by HPLC

A simple chiral analytical method was developed for the enantiomeric determination of cyflumetofen in cucumber, tomato, and apple by normal-phase HPLC. The effects of mobile phase composition and column temperature on the enantioseparation were evaluated. Excellent separation was achieved at 25°C on a Chiralpak AD-H column, with a mixture of n-hexane and 2-propanol (95:5, v/v) as mobile phase at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min detecting at 234 nm. The resolution of cyflumetofen enantiomers was up to 5.5. The elution order of the enantiomers was determined by an online OR-2090 detector, which was performed under the same chromatographic conditions. The first eluted enantiomer was (-)-cyflumetofen and the second eluted one was (+)-cyflumetofen. The method was validated for linearity, repeatability, accuracy, LOD, and LOQ. LOD ranged from 0.1 to 0.15 mg/kg, with the LOD varying from 0.33 to 0.5 mg/kg for each enantiomer, respectively. The average recoveries of the pesticide ranged from 71.4 to 102.0% at all fortification levels. The precision values associated with the analytical method, expressed as RSD values, were below 14.8% in all matrices. The method was then successfully applied to detect cyflumetofen enantiomers in real samples.