Determination of morpholinium ionic liquid cations in environmental water samples: development of solid-phase extraction method and ion chromatography

An ion chromatography and solid-phase extraction method has been applied for the separation and detection of morpholinium cations in environmental water samples. The water samples were purified and enriched by a UF-SCX sulfonic acid extraction column and eluted with 0.5 mol L⁻¹ phosphoric acid/sodium dihydrogen phosphate buffer solution/55% methanol. The target compounds were separated on a carboxylic acid cation exchange column with 5.0 mmol L⁻¹ methane sulfonic acid/2% acetonitrile as the mobile phase and direct conductivity detection. The method has been successfully applied to extract morpholinium cations from spiked water samples of Songhua River, Hulan River, East Lake, and Mopanshan Reservoir in China with the recoveries ranging from 75.0% to 98.3%. The relative standard deviations of intraday precision and interday precision are 2.1% and 5.9% or less, respectively. Using this method it is possible to preconcentrate water samples to 0.01–0.04 mg L⁻¹. The results show that the method is applicable to detection of morpholinium ionic liquid cations in environmental water samples and provides a new approach for monitoring ionic liquids in environmental water.

The analysis procedure of morpholinium ionic liquids in environmental water samples.