Ionic liquid-based ultrasound-assisted emulsification microextraction coupled with high performance liquid chromatography for the determination of four fungicides in environmental water samples

A highly efficient and environmentally friendly sample preparation method termed ionic liquid-based ultrasound-assisted emulsification microextraction (IL-USAEME) combined with high performance liquid chromatography has been developed for the determination of four fungicides (azoxystrobin, diethofencarb, pyrimethanil and kresoxim-methyl) in water samples. In this novel approach, ionic liquid (IL) was used as extraction solvent in place of the organic solvent used in conventional USAEME assay, and there is no need for using organic dispersive solvent which is typically required in the common dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction method. Various parameters that affect the extraction efficiency, such as the kind and volume of IL, ultrasound emulsification time, extraction temperature and salt addition were investigated and optimized. Under the optimum extraction condition, the linearities of calibration curves were in the range from 3 to 5000 ng mL−1 for target analytes with the correlation coefficient higher than 0.9992. The enrichment factors and the limits of detection were in the range of 88–137 and 0.73–2.2 ng mL−1, depending on the analytes. The environmental water samples were successfully analyzed using the proposed method, and the relative recoveries at fortified levels of 50 and 100 ng mL−1 were in the range of 83.9%–116.2%.