Ionic Liquid-Based Magnetic Needle Headspace Single-Drop Microextraction Combined with HPLC/UV for the Determination of Chlorophenols in Wastewater

Abstract

A magnetic needle headspace single-drop microextraction (MN-HS-SDME) method coupled to HPLC/UV has been developed. Trihexyl(tetradecyl)phosphonium chloride was employed as an ionic liquid (IL) solvent for the headspace extraction of some chlorophenol (CP) compounds from wastewater samples. Despite of the nonmagnetic character of the IL, a significant improvement in the extraction efficiency was obtained by the magnetization of the single-drop microextraction needle using a pair of permanent disk magnets. A simplex method for the fast optimization of the experimental conditions (e.g., stirring speed, ionic strength, pH, extraction time and temperature) was used. The coefficients of determination (R2) varied between 0.9932 and 0.9989, the limits of detection were from 0.004 to 0.007 μg mL-1 and the relative recoveries were in the range of 88-120% for the studied analytes. The developed MN-HS-SDME HPLC/UV method was successfully applied to the determination of CPs in industrial wastewater.