Fast dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction based on magnetic retrieval of in situ formed an ionic liquid for the preconcentration and determination of benzophenone-type UV filters from environmental water samples

This work concerns the development of a novel and rapid in situ dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction method for magnetic retrieval of ionic liquid as a new approach for the separation of benzophenone type (BP-type) UV filters via quantification using UPLC with PDA detection. The analytes determined in this study were a group of three benzophenones: 2,4-dihydroxybenzophenone (BP1), 2,2′,4,4′-tetrahydroxybenzophenone (BP2) and 2-hydroxy-4-metoxybenzophenone (BP3). The hydrophilic ionic liquid found suitable for use as an extraction solvent of the targeted analytes was didecyldimethylammonium chlorate (DDAC). An anion exchanger, NaClO4 was added to promote a metathesis reaction and in situ formed the IL, [DDA][ClO4]. The experimental parameters such as the concentration of IL, the molar ratio of DDAC to NaClO4, amount of iron oxide added and volume of water sample were investigated and optimised using a step-by-step optimisation process. The optimum experimental parameters were as follows: 30 mL of sample volume, 1% concentration of DDAC, the molar ratio of DDAC to NaClO4—1:2, and 5 mg of Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles. The proposed extraction method is simple and requires no more than 5 min. The detection limit (LOD) obtained for target analytes ranged from 12.320.0 ng L−1, while the correlation coefficient (r2) was from 0.9995 to 0.9999. Finally, the developed method was successfully applied to the determination of BP-type UV filters in environmental water samples, and satisfactory results were obtained.