Ionic liquid-anionic surfactant based aqueous two-phase extraction for determination of antibiotics in honey by high-performance liquid chromatography

• The ionic liquid-anionic surfactant based aqueous two-phase (ATP) extraction was first developed on extraction of antibiotics in honey.
• Two kinds of surfactants were used and two kinds of ATPs, including SDS-rich and IL-rich ATPs can be formed. IL-rich ATP was more satisfactory.
• IL amount used was small and phase separation time was short.

An ionic liquid-anionic surfactant based aqueous two-phase extraction was developed and applied for the extraction of tetracycline, oxytetracycline and chloramphenicol in honey. The honey sample was mixed with Na2EDTA aqueous solution. The sodium dodecyl sulfate, ionic liquid 1-octyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide and sodium chloride were added in the mixture. After the resulting mixture was ultrasonically shaken and centrifuged, the aqueous two phase system was formed and analytes were extracted into the upper phase. The parameters affecting the extraction efficiency, such as the volume of ionic liquid, the category and amount of salts, sample pH value, extraction time and temperature were investigated. The limits of detection of tetracycline, oxytetracycline and chloramphenicol were 5.8, 8.2 and 4.2 μg kg−1, respectively. When the present method was applied to the analysis of real honey samples, the recoveries of analytes ranged from 85.5 to 110.9% and relative standard deviations were lower than 6.9%.

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