Determination of copper(ii) and lead(ii) ions in dairy products by an efficient and green method of heat-induced homogeneous liquid–liquid microextraction based on a deep eutectic solvent

Abstract

In this study, a new homogeneous liquid–liquid microextraction method using a deep eutectic solvent has been developed for the extraction of Cu(II) and Pb(II) ions in dairy products. Initially, the deep eutectic solvent was synthesized using choline chloride and p-chlorophenol and used as the extraction solvent. The synthesized solvent was soluble in milk at 70 °C and its separation from the sample was performed by decreasing the temperature. By cooling, a cloudy solution was formed due to the low solubility of the solvent at low temperatures. On centrifugation, the fine droplets of the solvent containing the analytes settled at the bottom of the tube by sedimentation. The enriched analytes were determined by flame atomic absorption spectrometry. The effect of some important parameters such as the amount of protein precipitating agent , complexing agent amount, extraction solvent volume, salt addition, pH, and temperature on the extraction efficiency of the method was studied and optimized. Under the optimal conditions, the linear ranges of the method for Cu(II) and Pb(II) ions were obtained in the ranges of 0.10–50 and 0.50–50 μg L⁻¹ with detection limits of 0.04 and 0.18 μg L⁻¹, respectively. The repeatability of the developed method, expressed as relative standard deviation, was determined to be 3.2 and 3.9% for Cu(II) and Pb(II) ions, respectively. Finally, by determining the concentration of Cu(II) and Pb(II) ions in milk, doogh, and cheese samples, the feasibility of the method was successfully confirmed with the extraction recoveries of 95.9 and 92.1% for Cu(II) and Pb(II) ions, respectively.