Application of surfactant assisted dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction for sample preparation of chlorophenols in water samples

A simple, rapid, and efficient method, based on surfactant assisted dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction (SA-DLLME), followed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) has been developed for the extraction and determination of chlorophenols as model compounds in environmental water samples. A conventional cationic surfactant called cethyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) was used as a disperser agent in the proposed approach. Thirty-five microliter of 1-octanol as an extraction solvent was injected rapidly into 11 mL aqueous sample containing 0.09 mmol L−1 of CTAB, the mixture was then shaken for 3 min to disperse the organic phase. Having the extraction procedure been completed, the mixture was centrifuged and 20 μL of collected phase was injected into HPLC for subsequent analysis. Some parameters such as the type and volume of the extraction solvent, the type and concentration of surfactant, pH, ionic strength, shaking time, extraction temperature and centrifugation time were optimized. The preconcentration factors (PFs) in a range of 187–353 were obtained under the optimum conditions. The linear range, detection limit (S/N = 3), and precision (n = 5) were 0.2–200, 0.1 μg L−1, and 4.7–6.9%, respectively. Tap water, sea water and mineral water samples were successfully analyzed for the existence of chlorophenols using the proposed method.