Ultra Rapid and Highly Sensitive Disperser-less Liquid-liquid Microextraction of Organophosphate Pesticides Prior to Gas Chromatography with Mass Spectrometry Detection

Abstract

Background: Organophosphates (OPPs) are toxic chemicals that can cause serious health problems through poisoning water and food. Objectives: A very simple and fast disperser-less liquid microextraction strategy before chromatographic detection was designed for the analysis of organophosphates in various water solutions. Methods: A 60 µL aliquot of chloroform, as extraction solvent (without using disperser), was introduced into the sample solution by rapid injection, and the sedimented organic phase was analyzed to assay some organophosphates. Results: Analytical characteristics, including limits of detection (0.0003 - 0.001 µg.L-1), linear dynamic ranges (0.001 - 100 µg.L-1), relative standard deviations (2.5 - 10), enrichment factors (up to 238), and extraction recoveries (84% - 108%), indicated the high efficacy of the developed method for analyzing the target analytes. Conclusions: The proposed procedure was effectively used for the analysis of the OPPs in real tap water, river water, and fruit juice samples. In the present study, the examined analytes were in the range of 0.07 - 1.56 µg.L-1.