A novel ligandless-dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction method for matrix elimination and the preconcentration of rare earth elements from natural waters

•A novel ligandless-DLLM method was used for the first time for REES extraction.•It was used for matrix elimination and separation and preconcentration of REEs.•The obtained limits of detections were quite low at sub ppb levels for REEs.•The main benefits: minimum organic solvent, low cost, sensitivity, rapid analysis.•The method was efficiently applied to environmental samples such as seawaters.

A new, simple, efficient and rapid separation method based on ligandless-dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction (LL-DLLME) was developed for the preconcentration of rare earth elements (REEs) (La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb, Lu) in natural water samples, followed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) detection. Carbon tetrachloride and acetone were used as extraction solvent and disperser solvent, respectively. The experimental parameters affecting the extraction efficiency such as sample pH, volume of extraction/disperser solvent and concentration of NaCl were investigated and optimized. Under the optimum conditions, detection limits between 0.68 and 26.6 ng L−1 for a 5 mL sample volume were determined. The developed method was successfully applied to samples such as tap water, river water and seawater. Satisfactory recoveries were obtained with the percentage recovery values of the REEs for spiked water samples being between 94 and 111 for tap water, between 89 and 118 for river water and between 92 and 124 for seawater.

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