Dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction of thiram followed by microvolume UV–vis spectrophotometric determination

• A novel dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction method for thiram was developed.
• Microvolume UV–vis spectrophotometry was used as the detection system.
• A cloudy solution is formed by injection of only CCl4 as extractant solvent.
• The LOD is better than other methods based on spectrophotometric detection.
• Analysis of fungicide thiram in environmental and agricultural samples was performed.

A novel and simple method for the sensitive determination of trace amounts of fungicide thiram is developed by combination of dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction (DLLME) and microvolume UV–vis spectrophotometry. The method is based on the conversion of thiram to a yellow product in the presence of ethanolic potassium hydroxide and copper sulfate, and its extraction into CCL4 using DLLME technique. In this method the ethanol existing in ethanolic KOH plays as disperser solvent and a cloudy solution is formed by injection of only CCl4 as extractant solvent into sample solution. Under the optimum conditions, the calibration graph was linear over the range of 25–1000 ng mL−1 of thiram with limit of detection of 11.5 ng mL−1. The relative standard deviation (RSD) for 100 and 500 ng mL−1 of thiram was 2.7 and 1.1% (n = 8), respectively. The proposed method was successfully applied to determination of thiram in water and plant seed samples.

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