Preparation of a polymeric ionic liquid-based adsorbent for stir cake sorptive extraction of preservatives in orange juices and tea drinks

Abstract

In this study, a new polymeric ionic liquid-based adsorbent was prepared and used as the extraction medium of stir cake sorptive extraction (SCSE) of three organic acid preservatives, namely, p-hydroxybenzoic acid, sorbic acid and cinnamic acid. The adsorbent was synthesized by the copolymerization of 1-ally-3-vinylimidazolium chloride (AV) and divinylbenzene (DVB) in the presence of a porogen solvent containing 1-propanol and 1,4-butanediol. The effect of the content of monomer and the porogen solvent in the polymerization mixture on the extraction performance was investigated thoroughly. The adsorbent was characterized by infrared spectroscopy, elemental analysis, scanning electron microscopy and mercury intrusion porosimetry. To obtain the optimal extraction conditions of SCSE/AVDVB for target analytes, key parameters including desorption solvent, adsorption and desorption time, ionic strength and pH value in sample matrix were studied in detail. The results showed that under the optimized conditions, the SCSE/AVDVB could extract the preservatives effectively through multiply interactions. At the same time, a simple and sensitive method by combining SCSE/AVDVB and high-performance liquid chromatography with diode array detection was developed for the simultaneous analysis of the target preservatives in orange juices and tea drinks. Low limits of detection (S/N = 3) and quantification limits (S/N = 10) of the proposed method for the target analytes were achieved within the range of 0.012–0.23 μg/L and 0.039–0.42 μg/L, respectively. The precision of the proposed method was evaluated in terms of intra- and inter-assay variability calculated as relative standard deviation (RSD), and it was found that the values were all below 10%. Finally, the proposed method was used to detect preservatives in different orange juice and tea drink samples successfully. The recoveries were in the range of 71.9–116%, and the RSDs were below 10% in the all cases.