Determination of simazine in water samples by waveguide surface plasmon resonance

Abstract We assessed a new sensing device based on the monitoring of immunobinding reactions using waveguide surface plasmon resonance (WSPR) for the determination of simazine in water samples. Standard solutions between 0.1 and 1.0 μg l −1 analysed in triplicate showed a mean within-day variability of 5%. Calibration curves for the same standards conducted on five consecutive days showed a 14% mean day-to-day variability. The detection limit calculated as three standard deviations below the mean blank value was 0.2 μg l −1 . The upper limit of the working range calculated as a 90% decrease in the blank signal was 2.4 μg l −1 . The cross-reactivity of atrazine and terbuthylazine was 61 and 63%, respectively. The recovery from spiked natural ground- and surface-water samples ranged from 55 to 153% for spikes ranging from 0.1 to 1.0 μg l −1 . For the 11 surface- and 8 ground-water samples tested, the correlation coefficient between WSPR and high pressure liquid chromatography/gas chromatography (HPLC/GC) values was significant ( p