Comparison of micellar extraction combined with ionic liquid based vortex-assisted liquid–liquid microextraction and modified quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe method for the determination of difenoconazole in cowpea

Abstract Two simple sample pretreatment for the determination of difenoconazole in cowpea was developed including micellar extraction combined with ionic liquid based vortex-assisted liquid–liquid microextraction (ME-IL-VALLME) prior to high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and modified quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe method (QuEChERS) coupled with HPLC–MS/MS. In ME-IL-VALLME method, the target analyte was extracted by surfactant Tween 20 micellar solution, then the supernatant was diluted with 3 mL water to decrease the solubility of micellar solution. Subsequently, the vortex-assisted liquid–liquid microextraction (VALLME) procedure was performed in the diluted extraction solution by using the ionic liquid of 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate ([HMIM]PF 6 ) as the extraction solvent and Tween 20 as an emulsifier to enhance the dispersion of the water-immiscible ionic liquid into the aqueous phase. Parameters that affect the extraction have been investigated in both methods Under the optimum conditions, the limits of quantitation were 0.10 and 0.05 mg kg −1 , respectively. And good linearity was achieved with the correlation coefficient higher than 0.9941. The relative recoveries ranged from 78.6 to 94.8% and 92.0 to 118.0% with the relative standard deviations (RSD) of 7.9–9.6% and 1.2–3.2%, respectively. Both methods were quick, simple and inexpensive. However, the ME-IL-VALLME method provides higher enrichment factor compared with conventional QuEChERS method. The ME-IL-VALLME method has a strong potential for the determination of difenoconazole in complex vegetable matrices with HPLC.