Identification of Dinocap in water using GC/IR and GC/MS

The determination of Dinocap, one of the most often used acaricides and contact fungicides, is complicated by the fact that it consists of several isomeric alkyldinitro-phenyl-crotonates. In a first step, GC/IR and GC/MS has been used to separate the mixture, to determine the chromatographic behaviour and to fully characterize the six different isomeric compounds. The structures of additional impurities in the commerical preparation were shown to be the correlating phenols. An extraction/preconcentration method has been devised based on Carbopack B, yielding recoveries between 75 and 98%. A qualified estimation of the total Dinocap content of drinking water can be made by this approach for concentrations well below the limits set by the European drinking water regulations. The development of a complete analytical procedure based on these results appears to be feasible.