Ultrasound-assisted switchable hydrophilic solvent-based homogeneous liquid–liquid microextraction for the determination of triazole fungicides in environmental water by GC-MS

Abstract

A new method was developed for the determination of three triazole fungicides in environmental water samples by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) based on ultrasonic assisted switchable hydrophilic solvent homogeneous liquid–liquid microextraction. As a switchable hydrophilic solvent, N,N-dimethylcyclohexylamine (DMCHA) does not require a dispersant or centrifugation. Ultrasound assistance is helpful to speed up the extraction of target compounds and can reduce the pretreatment time. The entire pretreatment process of this method only takes 5 minutes. Using the Box–Behnken design as the means of optimization, optimal extraction conditions were obtained through a mathematical model. Good linearity was obtained in the range of 5–500 μg L⁻¹, and the correlation coefficient of target compounds was greater than 0.999. The matrix spiked recoveries were between 81.3% and 111.1% and the detection limit was between 0.46 and 0.99 μg L⁻¹. Intraday relative standard deviation (n = 3) was 13.0–13.9% at 100 μg L⁻¹. Finally, it was concluded that the method is a rapid, efficient and simple method for the analysis of triazole fungicides in water.