DETERMINATION OF ATRAZINE IN MILK BY IMMUNOASSAY

A polyclonal enzyme immunoassay method has been developed to determine atrazine in process milk including skim, low-fat, whole, chocolate, evaporated, non-fat dry milk, and half and half. The procedure is sufficiently simple for plant use, rapid (15 min) and sensitive (0.2 ng/ml). Atrazine concentration was linear from 0.2 ng/ml to 6.4 ng/ml. Same day and day-to-day (over a two-month period) reproducibility was excellent with most per cent coefficients of variation (% CV) below 12% even at the 0.2 ng/ml level. Cross-reactivity was such that this method could be used to determine other triazine pesticides in milk. Milk products throughout the USA and some in Czechoslovakia and Sri Lanka have been tested by this immunoassay procedure.