Novel multifunctional acceptor phase additive of water-miscible ionic liquid in hollow-fiber protected liquid phase microextraction

In this paper, water-miscible ionic liquid (IL) such as 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([BMIM]Cl) is introduced for the first time as a novel multifunctional acceptor phase additive in hollow-fiber protected liquid phase microextraction (HF-LPME). For investigating the performances of [BMIM]Cl, it was respectively mixed with NaOH, HCl and deionized water. And their extraction performance was preliminary evaluated with alkaline compounds (clenbuterol, metoprolol, carteolol and propranolol), acidic compounds (diethylstilbestrol, hexestrol, phenol and bisphenol A) and neutral compounds (acenaphthylene, fluorene and fluoranthene). Furthermore, a complete extraction and determination method using IL-three phase HF-LPME and liquid chromatography was established for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in river water. The extraction conditions, such as concentration of IL, extraction temperature, extraction time, stirring speed, ionic strength and the addition of methanol were studied in detail. Under the optimum conditions, the linear ranges of acenaphthylene, fluorene and fluoranthene were 1–100, 1–200 and 1–200 ng mL−1, respectively. Limit of detections (LODs) were lower than 0.25 ng mL−1. The recoveries of PAHs in three kinds of spiked real water are between 90.97 and 109.7% and the precisions are in the range of 2.53–7.01%. Since water-miscible ionic liquids had various forms, similar extraction capabilities to organic solvents and could be conveniently adjusted by acid, alkaline and buffer, this proposed method should have great potentiality in sample preparation of HF-LPME.