Introduction. Chlordecone (CLD), an organochlorine formerly used to control
the banana black weevil, is strongly adsorbed on soils, particularly on andosols. A
simplified analytical procedure for the quantitative determination of chlordecone residues
in water and micro-samples of soil and plants was compared with a standard method.
Materials and methods. The procedure combines a simplified sampling
protocol and a 10-min solid phase microextraction (SPME), followed by gas chromatographic
separation (GC) and mass spectrometric (MS and MS/MS) identification. Quantitation of CLD
used a standard addition method with zero extrapolation. First, seventy samples were
analysed using the proposed method and the standard method based on hot solvent
extraction. Second, fifteen soil samples were analysed with two SPME methods followed by
GC-MS but using CLD labelled with C13 as an internal standard or the proposed method.
Results and discussion. The detection (LOD) and quantitation (LOQ) limits
of our SPME extraction procedure were determined for GC-MS and GC-MS/MS with water, plant
(pineapple roots) and soil samples: in water for MS/MS, LODMS/MS-water = 0.5 ng×L–1,
LOQMS/MS-water = 2.0 ng×L–1; in andosol for MS/MS, LODMS/MS-soil = 15.0 ng×kg–1 dw,
LOQMS/MS-soil = 80.0 ng×kg–1 dw. Data from the seventy contaminated soils obtained with
the proposed method and the standard method showed a correlation coefficient of r = 0.86.
Data obtained by the two SPME/GC-MS quantitation procedures showed a correlation of r =
0.8073. Conclusion. The method proposes a simplified sample preparation and
extraction of CLD in water, plant and soil samples, with no solvent manipulation and which
is not time-consuming. The LOD and LOQ were similar to those obtained with other currently
used methods. The method is reliable and accurate and may be considered as a good tool for
research purposes.