Comparison of the performance of conventional, temperature-controlled, and ultrasound-assisted ionic liquid dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction combined with high-performance liquid chromatography in analyzing pyrethroid pesticides in honey samples

This research paper presents a comparative study of the performance of conventional, ultrasound-assisted (UA), and temperature-controlled (TC) ionic liquid (IL) dispersive liquid-phase microextraction (IL-DLLME). Various parameters that affect extraction efficiency, such as type and volume of extraction and disperser solvent, centrifugation time, salt addition, effect of temperature on TC-IL-DLLME, and effect of sonication time on UA-IL-DLLME, were evaluated. UA-IL-DLLME was found to provide the best extraction efficiency. Under optimized conditions, great enrichment factors (506-515) and good recoveries (101.2-103.0%) were obtained by analyte extraction in real samples. The limit of detections (LODs) ranged from 0.21 to 0.38 mu g L-1. Good linearity was obtained in the range of 0.5-200 mu g L-1 for ethofenprox and tetramethrin, and 1-200 mu g L-1 for meperfluthrin and alpha-cypermethrin. Based on optimized conditions, the UA-IL-DLLME method was applied and combined with high-performance liquid chromatography with diode array detection (HPLC-DAD) to determine the presence of ethofenprox, tetramethrin, meperfluthrin, and alpha-cypermethrin in honey samples. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.