The main objective of this work is to develop an efficient procedure to determine glyphosate in soybean grains. The cleanup of the aqueous extracts was done in two steps, beginning with liquid-liquid partitioning and then solid-phase extraction with anion exchange resin. After derivatization with a mixture of trifluoroacetic anhydride (TFAA) and trifluoroethanol (TFE), quantification was done by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. The mean recovery and RSD of the spiked samples were, respectively, 80.5% and 3.1% at level 0.200 mg kg-1, 93.3% and 18.7% at level 0.500 mg kg-1 and 92% and 3.5% at level 1.000 mg kg-1. The method was linear in the working range (correlation coefficient = 0.9965).

In the present paper we studied the recoveries of glyphosate, N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine (GLY) and its major metabolite, (aminomethyl)phosphonic acid (AMPA) in soil using national (Brazilian) ion-exchange resins, derivatization by a mixture of trifluoroacetic anhydride and trifluoroethanol and analyses by GC-MS. The quantification limits were 12 ng.g-1 for both compounds and the methodology showed a range of recuperation from 85 to 94% with coefficients of variation (CV) ranging from 4.07 to 6.91% for GLY. For AMPA, the mean recoveries ranged from 87 to 102% with CVs ranging from 5.81 to 6.99%. Additional studies showed that, due to the instability of the derivatized compounds, they must be analysed keeping constant time between derivatization and analysis, preferably less than 24 h.