Hydrophobic deep eutectic solvent-based dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction for the simultaneous enantiomeric analysis of five β-agonists in the environmental samples

In this study, a simple and effective method was developed for the enantiomeric analysis of five beta-agonists (terbutaline, clorprenaline, tulobuterol, clenbuterol, and salbutamol) in water samples using deep eutectic solvent (DES) based dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction and chiral LC-MS. In such a framework, different kinds of hydrophobic DESs were tailored to examine their extraction ability for five beta-agonists from aqueous sample. After an initial screening, the primary factors affecting the extraction recovery of DES based dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction, such as hydrogen-bond acceptor/hydrogen-bond donor ratio, DES volume, type and volume of disperser solvent and so on, were investigated and optimized. Finally, the established method was validated and found to be linear, precise, and accurate. The method was successfully applied to analyze the five beta-agonists in water samples, which will help better understand the behavior of individual enantiomer and make accurate risk assessment on the ecosystem.