Dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction for the determination of copper in cereals and vegetable food samples using flame atomic absorption spectrometry

Dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction (DLLME) is applied for the determination of copper in cereals and vegetable food samples using flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS). The maximum extraction efficiency of copper was obtained after the optimisation of parameters such as extraction and dispersing solvents, pH, concentration of 2,9-dimethyl-1,10-phenanothroline (DPT), N-phenylbenzimidoyl thiourea (PBITU) and salt. The optimised methodology exhibited a good linearity in the range of 0.2–20 ng/mL copper with relative standard deviations percentage (RSD,%) from ±1.5% to 3.5%. The method is found to be simple and rapid for the analysis of copper in food samples with the limit of detection (LOD) and quantitation (LOQ) were 0.05 and 0.16 ng/mL, respectively. Good recoveries of copper were obtained in the range of 93.5–98.0% in food samples as well as in Certified Reference Material (99.1%). The application of the proposed method has been successfully tested for the determination of copper in cereals (maize, millet, rice, wheat, gram, lentils, kidney beans and green beans) and vegetable (potato, cauliflower, tomato, spinach, green beans, lettuce, egg plants and bitter gourd) food samples.