Extraction of pesticides in water samples using vortex-assisted liquid–liquid microextraction

A simple solvent microextraction method termed vortex-assisted liquid–liquid microextraction (VALLME) coupled with gas chromatography micro electron-capture detector (GC-μECD) has been developed and used for the pesticide residue analysis in water samples. In the VALLME method, aliquots of 30 μL toluene used as extraction solvent were directly injected into a 25 mL volumetric flask containing the water sample. The extraction solvent was dispersed into the water phase under vigorously shaking with the vortex. The parameters affecting the extraction efficiency of the proposed VALLME such as extraction solvent, vortex time, volumes of extraction solvent and salt addition were investigated. Under the optimum condition, enrichment factors (EFs) in a range of 835–1115 and limits of detection below 0.010 μg L−1 were obtained for the determination of target pesticides in water. The calculated calibration curves provide high levels of linearity yielding correlation coefficients (r2) greater than 0.9958 with the concentration level ranged from 0.05 to 2.5 μg L−1. Finally, the proposed method has been successfully applied to the determination of pesticides from real water samples and acceptable recoveries over the range of 72–106.3% were obtained.