Determination of phthalate esters in water samples by ionic liquid cold-induced aggregation dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography

A novel method, termed ionic liquid cold-induced aggregation dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction (IL-CIA-DLLME), combined with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was developed for the determination of three phthalate esters in water samples. Several important parameters influencing the IL-CIA-DLLME extraction efficiency, such as the type of extraction and disperser solvent, the volume of extraction and disperser solvent, temperature, extraction time and salt effect, were investigated. Under optimal extraction conditions, the enrichment factors and extraction recoveries ranged from 174 to 212 and 69.9 to 84.8%, respectively. Excellent linearity with coefficients of correlation from 0.9968 to 0.9994 was observed in the concentration range of 2–100 ng mL⁻¹. The repeatability of the proposed method expressed as relative standard deviations ranged from 2.2 to 3.7% (n = 5). Limits of detection were between 0.68 and 1.36 ng mL⁻¹. Good relative recoveries for phthalate esters in tap, bottled mineral and river water samples were obtained in the ranges of 91.5–98.1%, 92.4–99.2% and 90.1–96.8%, respectively. Thus, the proposed method has excellent potential for the determination of phthalate esters in the environmental field.