Quantitation of antioxidants in water samples using ionic liquid dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction followed by high-performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet detection.

A simple and efficient method, ionic liquid-based dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction combined with high-performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet detection (HPLC-UV), has been applied for the extraction and determination of some antioxidants (Irganox 1010, Irganox 1076 and Irgafos 168) in water samples. The microextraction efficiency factors were investigated and optimized: 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate [C(6)MIM][PF(6)] (0.06 g) as extracting solvent, methanol (0.5 mL) as disperser solvent without salt addition. Under the selected conditions, enrichment factors up to 48-fold, limits of detection (LODs) of 5.0-10.0 ng/mL and dynamic linear ranges of 25-1500 ng/mL were obtained. A reasonable repeatability (RSD≤11.8%, n=5) with satisfactory linearity (r(2)≥0.9954) of the results illustrated a good performance of the presented method. The accuracy of the method was tested by the relative recovery experiments on spiked samples, with results ranging from 85 to 118%. Finally, the method was successfully applied for determination of the analytes in several real water samples.