Determination of triazine herbicides in sheep liver by microwave-assisted extraction and high performance liquid chromatography

A multi-residue method developed for the analysis of triazine herbicides, simazine, atrazine, propazine and prometryne, in sheep liver is presented. The method is based on microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) of sheep liver using methanol as extractant and analysis of extracts by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and ultraviolet detection. MAE operational parameters, the solvent type and volume, extraction temperature and time, were optimized in detail with respect to extraction efficiency of the target compounds from sheep liver. The recoveries of the method at two different spiked levels were assessed by analyzing spiked liver samples and were found to be in the range from 90 to 102% with good precision (<11%).