Development of Dispersive Liquid-Liquid Microextraction Based on Solidification of Floating Organic Drop for the Sensitive Determination of Trace Copper in Water and Beverage Samples by Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrometry

A dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction based on solidification of floating organic droplet (DLLME-SFO) has been developed as a new approach for the extraction of trace copper in water and beverage samples followed by the determination with flame atomic absorption spectrometry. In the DLLME-SFO, 8-hydroxy quinoline, 1-dodecanol, and methanol were used as chelating agent, extraction solvent and dispersive solvent, respectively. The experimental parameters related to the DLLME-SFO such as the type and volume of the extraction and dispersive solvent, extraction time, sample volume, the concentration of chelating agent and salt addition were investigated and optimized. Under the optimum conditions, the enrichment factor for copper was 122. The method was linear in the range from 0.5 to $300\;ng\;mL^{-1}$ of copper in the samples with a correlation coefficient (r) of 0.9996 and a limit of detection of $0.1\;ng\;mL^{-1}$. The method was applied to the determination of copper in water and beverage samples. The recoveries for the spiked water and beverage samples at the copper concentration levels of 5.0 and $10.0\;ng\;mL^{-1}$ were in the range between 92.0% and 108.0%. The relative standard deviations (RSD) varied from 3.0% to 5.6%.