Evaluation of IL-ATPS and IL-MAE for Simultaneous Determination of Herbicides and Plant Growth Regulators in Sediment

Two analytical methods, an ionic liquid/salt aqueous two-phase system (IL-ATPS) and ionic liquid-based microwave-assisted extraction procedure (IL-MAE), were evaluated for simultaneous extraction and determination of herbicides (2,4-dichlorophenoxy acetic acid, bensulfuron) and plant growth regulators (kinetin, 6-benzylaminopurine, uniconazole) in sediment followed by high-performance liquid chromatography with the diode-array detector. The experimental parameters of two methods including the volume of ionic liquid (IL), pH, the extraction temperature and the amount of salt were studied. Under the optimum conditions, the limits of detection were in the range of 0.001-0.004 A mu g g(-1) for IL-ATPS and 0.002-0.04 A mu g g(-1) for IL-MAE procedure, respectively. Relative standard deviations (RSD, n = 5) and recoveries were in the range of 2.4-4.3 % and 95-98 %, respectively for IL-ATPS, 1.0-12.0 % and 83-127 % for IL-MAE procedure except for bensulfuron. The recoveries obtained by means of IL-ATPS were higher than that by means of other methods. In addition, the IL-ATPS has the advantages of small amount of IL consumption and small systematic errors, which was applied to the simultaneous determination of the above five target analytes in actual sediment samples.