High-fast enantioselective determination of prothioconazole in different matrices by supercritical fluid chromatography and vibrational circular dichroism spectroscopic study

Abstract Herein, we developed a rapid supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) method for chiral separation and enantioselective determination of prothioconazole in soil and tomatoes. The potential effects of chiral stationary phases, co-solvents, column temperature, and back pressure on enantioseparation of prothioconazole have been studied in detail. Two prothioconazole enantiomers were best separated on cellulose tris(3, 5-dimethylphenylcarbamate)-coated chiral stationary phase with CO 2 -2-propanol (80:20, v/v) as the mobile phase, and the run time through SFC (about 4 min) was five-fold shorter than HPLC. Then, through comparing the experimental vibrational circular dichroism spectrum of the later-eluted component with the calculated pattern based on the ( R )-configuration, it should be ( R )-(-)-prothioconazole. Moreover, the modified QuEChERS (quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged and safe) extraction and cleanup procedures were applied in enantiomeric analysis of prothioconazole in two matrices. Good linearity ( R 2 ≥ 0.9992) and recoveries (91.84–101.66%, RSD ≤ 3.98%) for two enantiomers were achieved. This proposed method showed good accuracy and precision, and might be suitable for fast enantioselective determination and residual quantitative analysis of prothioconazole in food and environmental samples.