Development and application of chemometric-assisted dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction for the determination of suspected fragrance allergens in water samples

A simple and green method based on dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction, mated to chemometrics and followed by mass spectrometric detection for the determination of suspected fragrance allergens in water samples is developed and assessed in this work. Volume of extraction and disperser solvent, pH, ionic strength, extraction time, sample volume, as well as centrifugation time were initially optimized in a fractional factorial design. The obtained significant factors were optimized by using a central composite design and the quadratic model between the dependent and the independent variables was built. The obtained optimal conditions were: aqueous sample of 3.8 mL, 100 μL chloroform, 1.40 mL acetone, 4 min centrifugation time, natural pH containing 5% (w/v) NaCl, and centrifugation speed 4000 rpm. Method proved to be linear over a wide range of concentration for all analytes with R(2) between 0.9807 and 0.9959. The repeatability and reproducibility of the proposed method, expressed as relative standard deviation, varied between 3-13% and 4-16%, respectively. The limits of detection ranged from 0.007 to 1.0 μg L(-1) . The recommended method was applied to water samples including baby bath as well as swimming pool water samples and was compared with a previously reported method.