Using bio-dispersive solution of chitosan for green dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction of trace amounts of Cu(II) in edible oils prior to analysis by ICP-OES

•Chitosan was used as a new dispersive agent in DLLME method.•This is a green approach for DLLME of Cu(II) from edible oil without centrifugation.•The rapid microextraction procedure can be performed in <1 min.•The developed method was suitably applied for determination of Cu(II) in edible oils.

A green approach using chitosan solution as a novel bio-dispersive agent for the dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (DLLME) of trace amounts of Cu(II) in edible oils is presented. An emulsion was formed by mixing the oil sample with 300 µL of 0.25% (w/v) chitosan solution containing 200 µL of 6 mol L−1 HCl. Deionized water was used to induce emulsion breaking without centrifugation. The centrifuged Cu(II) extract was collected and analyzed using an inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometer. The detection and quantitation limits were 2.1 and 6.8 µg L−1, respectively. Trace amounts of Cu(II) in six edible oil samples were tested under optimum conditions for DLLME, with a recovery ranging from 90.3% to 109.3%. Therefore, the new dispersive agent in DLLME offers superior performance owing to the non-toxic nature of the solvent, short extraction time, high sensitivity, and easy operation.