Journal of Chromatography A, 892 (2000) 435–453 www.elsevier.com / locate / chroma Review Recent and future developments of liquid chromatography in pesticide trace analysis * Elbert Hogendoorn , Piet van Zoonen Laboratory of Organic – Analytical Chemistry, National Institute of Public Health and the Environment ( RIVM), P .O. Box 1, 3720 BA, Bilthoven, Netherlands Abstract Until recently, the application of liquid chromatography (LC) in pesticide analysis was usually focused on groups of compounds or single compounds for which no suitable conditions were available for analysis with gas chromatography (GC). However, recent developments in both detection and column material technology show that LC significantly enlarged its scope in this field of analysis. Obviously, the most striking example is the rather abrupt transition of LC coupled to mass spectrometric detection (MS) from an experimental and scientifically fashionable technique to a robust, sensitive and selective detection mode rendering LC–MS being increasingly used in pesticide trace analysis. Other recent major developments originate from the innovation of new LC column packing materials, viz. immuno-affinity sorbents, restricted access medium materials and molecular imprinted polymers improving considerably the screening of polar pesticides by means of reversed-phase LC with UV detection. In this review the merits and perspectives of these important LC developments and their impact to current and future applications in pesticide trace analysis are presented and discussed.  2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Stationary phases, LC; Molecular imprinting; Restricted-access media; Liquid chromatography–mass spec- trometry; Environmental analysis; Water analysis; Soil; Extraction methods; Reviews; Pesticides Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................................ 436 2. Column material technologies .................................................................................................................................................. 437 2.1. Immunosorbent materials ................................................................................................................................................ 437 2.2. Molecular imprinted polymer materials ............................................................................................................................ 438 2.3. Restricted access medium columns ................................................................................................................................... 439 3. Liquid chromatography with mass spectrometric detection ......................................................................................................... 443 3.1. General aspects ............................................................................................................................................................... 443 3.2. Methods for water samples .............................................................................................................................................. 444 3.3. Methods for solid samples ............................................................................................................................................... 450 4. Conclusions and trends ............................................................................................................................................................ 451 Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................................................................... 451 References .................................................................................................................................................................................. 451 *Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: elbert.hogendoorn@rivm.nl (E. Hogendoorn), piet.van.zoonen@rivm.nl (P. van Zoonen). 0021-9673 / 00 / $ – see front matter  2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S0021-9673(00)00151-5