A natural deep eutectic solvent as a novel dispersive solvent in dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction based on solidification of floating organic droplet for the determination of pesticide residues

Current trends in analytical chemistry encourage the use of innocuous solvents to develop modem methods aligned with green chemistry. In this sense, natural deep eutectic solvents (NADESs) have emerged as a novel generation of green solvents which can be employed in sample treatments as an alternative to the toxic organic solvents commonly used so far. In this work, a new extraction method employs dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction based on a solid floating organic droplet (DLLME-SFO), by using a mixture composed of a less dense than water extraction solvent, 1-dodecanol, and a novel dispersive solvent, NADES. The methodology was proposed to extract and preconcentrate some pesticide residues (fipronil, fipronil-sulfide, fipronil-sulfone, and boscalid) firm environmental water and white wine samples before analysis by liquid-chromatography coupled to ultraviolet detection (HPLC-UV). Limits of quantification (LOQs) lower than 4.5 mu g L-1, recoveries above 80%, and precision, expressed as RSD, below 15% were achieved in both samples showing that the proposed method is a powerful, efficient, and green alternative for the determination of these compounds and, therefore, demonstrating a new application for NADES in sample preparation. In addition, the DLLME-SFOD-HPLC-UV method was evaluated and compared with other reported approaches using the Analytical GREEnness metric approach, which highlighted the greenness of the proposed method.

Automated summary

By utilizing natural deep eutectic solvents (NADES) as extracting solvents, combined with dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (DLLME-SFO) method, pesticide residues in environmental water and white wine samples were successfully extracted and preconcentrated, achieving high recoveries and low detection limits. This method demonstrates a new application for NADES in sample preparation and highlights its greenness compared to other reported approaches.