Determination of aromatic amines in environmental water sample by hollow fiber-liquid phase microextraction and microemulsion electrokinetic chromatography

A novel method of microemulsion electrokinetic chromatography (MEEKC) coupled with hollow fiber-liquid phase microextraction (HF-LPME) was developed for determination of six aromatic amines including 4-methylaniline, 3-nitroaniline, 2,4-dimethylaniline, 4-chloroaniline, 3,4-dichloraniline and 4-aminobiphenyl. Baseline separation of six aromatic amines was achieved within 8 min by using the microemulsion buffer containing a 10 mM borate buffer at pH 9.0, 0.8% (v/v) ethyl acetate as oil droplets, 60 mM sodium cholate as surfactant, 5.0% (v/v) 1-butanol as co-surfactant. The influence factors relevant to the HF-LPME process were systemically investigated. The obtained enrichment factors were ranged between 70 and 157 in a 30 min extraction time, and the limits of detection ranged between 0.0021 and 0.0048 μg/mL. This purposed method was successfully applied for the analysis of aromatic amines in water sample and the recoveries were ranged from 87.2% to 99.8%.