Dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction applied to isolation and concentration of alkylphenols and their short-chained ethoxylates in water samples

Dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (DLLME) Coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detector was applied for the determination of alkylphenols and their short-chained ethoxylates in water samples. Development of DLLME procedure included optimisation of some important parameters such as kind and volume of extracting and dispersing solvents Under optimised conditions 50 mu L of trichloroethylene in 1 5 mL of acetone were rapidly injected into 5 mL. of a water sample After centrifuging the organic phase containing the analytes was taken for evaporation with a gentle nitrogen purge and reconstituted to 50 mu L of acetonitrile. The aliquot of this Solution was analysed with the use of HPLC For octylphenol (OP) and octylphenol ethoxylates (OPEOs) linearity was satisfactory in the range 8-1000 mu g L-1 and for nonylphenol (NP) and nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPECs) linearity was in the range from 50 to about 3000 mu g L-1 Limit of quantitation was 0 1 mu g L-1 for OP and OPEOs and 0 3 mu g L-1 for NP and NPEOs Satisfactory recoveries between 66 and 79% were obtained for environmental samples The results showed that DLLME is a simple, rapid and sensitive analytical method for the preconcentration of trace amounts of alkylphenols and their ethoxylates in environmental water samples (C) 2010 Elsevier B V All rights reserved