Optimized ultrasound-assisted emulsification microextraction for simultaneous trace multielement determination of heavy metals in real water samples by ICP-OES

► Simultaneous trace determination of 12 heavy metals (Al, Bi, Cd, Co, Cu, Fe, Ga, In, Ni, Pb, Tl and Zn). ► Optimization and modeling the method by response surface design with the least experimental runs. ► Ultrasound assisted to speed up extraction at room temperature without any chemicals. ► APDC was used as the chelating agent to extract the metal ions into CCl4. ► Analysis by ICP-OES offered a fast multi-elemental simultaneous analysis with an extended dynamic range.