Ion‐pair‐based hollow‐fiber liquid‐phase microextraction combined with high‐performance liquid chromatography for the simultaneous determination of urinary benzene,toluene, and styrene metabolites

In the current study, a novel technique for extraction and determination of trans,trans‐muconic acid, hippuric acid, and mandelic acid was developed by means of ion‐pair‐based hollow fiber liquid‐phase microextraction in the three‐phase mode. Important factors affecting the extraction efficiency of the method were investigated and optimized. These metabolites were extracted from 10 mL of the source phase into a supported liquid membrane containing 1‐octanol and 10% w/v of Aliquat 336 as the ionic carrier followed by high‐performance liquid chromatography analysis. The organic phase immobilized in the pores of a hollow fiber was back‐extracted into 24 μL of a solution containing 3.0 mol/L sodium chloride placed inside the lumen of the fiber. A very high preconcentration of 212‐ to 440‐fold, limit of detection of 0.1–7 μg/L, and relative recovery of 87–95% were obtained under the optimized conditions of this method. The relative standard deviation values for within‐day and between‐day precisions were calculated at 2.9–8.5 and 4.3–11.2%, respectively. The method was successfully applied to urine samples from volunteers at different work environments. The results demonstrated that the method can be used as a sensitive and effective technique for the determination of the metabolites in urine.