A new sample treatment strategy based on supramolecular solvent for determination of herbicide residues in water samples by Box-Behnken design

This paper describes a sensitive, simple and green analytical method for pretreatment of sulfonylurea and pyrethroid herbicides in water samples by supramolecular solvent-based liquid phase microextraction (SUPRAS-LPME). The SUPRAS was rapidly formed by nonanoic acid and tetrahydrofuran (THF)/water solution. The attractive features of SUPRAS-LPME include the simplicity, high enrichment factor, low cost and less consumption of organic solvents. The main influencing factors including type and volume of fatty acids, volume of THF, ionic strength, vortex time and volume of formic acid were optimized in detail, and then the significant variables were optimized by Box-Behnken design (BBD). Under the optimized condition, the proposed method shows high precision (RSDs < 13.7 %), low limits of detection (0.5-10 mu g L-1) and limits of quantitation (10-45 mu g L-1), acceptable recovery (71.3 %-95.9 %). The proposed method was successfully applied for analysis of sulfonylurea and pyrethroid herbicides in water samples, making it an alternative analytical strategy for determination of trace analytes at the microgram per liter range with desirable sensitivity.

Automated summary

This paper presents a sensitive, simple and environmentally friendly method for pretreating sulfonylurea and pyrethroid herbicides in water samples using supramolecular solvent-based liquid phase microextraction (SUPRAS-LPME). The SUPRAS was quickly formed by combining nonanoic acid and tetrahydrofuran (THF)/water solution. The SUPRAS-LPME method offers simplicity, high enrichment factor, low cost, and minimal use of organic solvents. The optimized method showed high precision, low limits of detection and quantitation, and acceptable recovery rates. This method can be used as an alternative analytical strategy for determining trace analytes with desirable sensitivity in the microgram per liter range.