Preconcentration of triazole fungicides using effervescent assisted switchable hydrophilicity solvent-based microextraction prior to high-performance liquid chromatographic analysis

Abstract

An effective preconcentration method namely, effervescent assisted switchable hydrophilicity solvent-based microextraction with the solidification of floating organic droplet, was investigated for enrichment of triazole fungicides prior to their analysis by HPLC. In this work, octanoic acid (as extraction solvent) was generated by in-situ formation between sodium octanoate and citric acid. Carbon dioxide was occurred during the process, which induced the mass transfer and improve the extraction efficiency of the target analytes. The switchable hydrophilicity solvent was collected after solidification in an ice-bath. The experimental parameters were investigated and optimized. Good linearity was obtained over the range of 3–100 μg L-1, with a coefficient of determination more than 0.99. Low limits of detection (1 μg L-1), and acceptable enrichment factors (29.13–102.39) were obtained. The relative standard deviation (RSD) of intra-day (n = 5) and inter-day (n = 5 × 3 days) for the studied triazoles at a concentration level of 10 μg L-1 were less than 3.10 %. Eventually, the presented extraction method was prosperously investigated to the analysis of trace levels of triazole fungicides in water and honey matrices. The results show that no residue of the studied triazoles was observed in the studies samples.