Application of dispersion-solidification liquid-liquid microextraction for the determination of triazole fungicides in environmental water samples by high-performance liquid chromatography

A simple, rapid and environmentally friendly method has been developed for the determination of four triazole fungicides (myclobutanil, tebuconazole, triadimenol, hexaconazole) in water samples by dispersion-solidification liquid-liquid microextraction coupled with high performance liquid chromatography-diode array detection. Several variables that affect the extraction efficiencies, including the type and volume of the extraction solvent and dispersive solvent, extraction time, effect of pH and salt addition, were investigated and optimized. Under the optimum conditions, the proposed method is sensitive and shows a good linearity within a range of 0.5-200 ng mL(-1), with the correlation coefficients (r) varying from 0.9992 to 0.9998. High enrichment factors were achieved ranging from 190 to 450. The recoveries of the target analytes from water samples at spiking levels of 1.0, 5.0 and 50.0 ng mL(-1) were between 84.8% and 110.2%. The limits of detection (LODs) for the analytes were ranged in 0.06-0.1 ng mL(-1), and the relative standard deviations (RSD) varied from 3.9% to 5.7%. The proposed method has been successfully applied for the determination of the triazole fungicides in real water samples. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.