A simple and sensitive vortex-assisted ionic liquid-dispersive microextraction and spectrophotometric determination of selenium in food samples

•An environmentally friendly extraction method was developed for the determination of Se.•The proposed method consumes less organic solvent.•The proposed method was applied to different food samples and to the standard reference material, NIST SRM 2976 mussel tissue.

In the present study, a novel and eco-friendly vortex-assisted ionic liquid-based microextraction method was developed for the determination of selenium in food. The microextraction method is based on the liberation of iodine in the presence of selenium; the liberated iodine reacts with I− to form I3−. Anionic I3− reacts with cationic crystal violet dye, and the product is extracted into 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate phase in the presence of Triton X-114. The proposed method is linear in the range of 2.0-70 µg L−1 and has a detection limit of 9.8 × 10−2 µg L−1. Relative standard deviations were 3.67% and 2.89% for the five replicate measurements of 14 and 35 µg L−1 Se(IV), respectively. The proposed method was successfully applied to different food samples (NIST SRM 2976 mussel tissue, pepper, ginger, wheat flour, red lentil, traditional soup, cornflour, cornstarch, and garlic) after microwave digestion.