Optimization of a single-drop microextraction procedure for the determination of organophosphorus pesticides in water and fruit juice with gas chromatography-flame photometric detection

A single-drop microextraction (SDME) procedure was developed for the analysis of organophosphorus pesticides (OPPs) in water and fruit juice by gas chromatography (GC) with flame photometric detection (GC-FPD). The significant parameters affecting the SDME performance such as selection of microextraction solvent, solvent volume, extraction time, stirring rate, sample pH and temperature, and ionic strength were studied and optimized. Two types of SDME mode, static and cycle-flow SDME, were evaluated. The static SDME procedure provided more sensitive analysis of the target analytes. Therefore, static SDME with tributyl phosphate (TBP) as internal standard was selected for the real sample analysis. The limits of detection (LODs) in water for the six studied compounds were between 0.21 and 0.56 ng/mL with the relative standard deviations ranging from 1.7 to 10.0%. Linear response data was obtained in the concentration range of 0.5–50 ng/mL (except for dichlorvos 1.0–50 ng/mL) with correlation coefficients from 0.9995 to 0.9999. Environmental water sample collected from East Lake and fruit juice samples were successfully analyzed using the proposed method, but none of the analytes in both lake water and fruit juice were detected. The recoveries for the spiked water and juice samples were from 77.7 to 113.6%. Compared with the conventional methods, the proposed method enabled a rapid and simple determination of organophosphorus pesticides in water and fruit juice with minimal solvent consumption and a higher concentration capability.