Ionic liquid based dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction for the extraction of pesticides from bananas

In a few cases, other aqueous matrices such as wines or fruit juices have been analyzed by DLLME, and solid matrices have been analyzed to a much lesser extent.

“In few cases, other aqueous matrices {e.g., wines [35] or fruit juices [40,44]} have also been analyzed, as have solid matrices [5,23,26,29,36,38,45,50] to a much lesser extent”

In Ravelo-Pérez et al. [38], parameters affecting IL-DLLME of eight pesticides were optimized using an experimental design (central composite design).

“In the first of these works [38], parameters affecting the IL-DLLME of eight pesticides (i.e. thiophanate-methyl, carbofuran, carbaryl, tebuconazole, iprodione, oxyfluorfen, hexythiazox and fenazaquin) were optimized by means of an experimental design (central composite design).”

For IL-DLLME of pesticides, a relatively small number of works has been published, especially in recent years.

“Regarding IL-DLLME of pesticides, a relatively small number of works has come out, especially in recent years [13-16,32,38,47,50].”

In Ravelo-Pérez et al. [38], mean recovery percentages were 53-97% with RSD below 8.7%, and LODs were 0.320-4.66 μg/kg, well below EU MRLs.

“Mean recovery percentages were 53-97% with RSD values below 8.7%, which represent LODs of 0.320-4.66 l g/kg, well below maximum residue limits of the European Union (EU MRLs).”

The first application of IL-DLLME for extraction of pesticides from matrices other than water was by Ravelo-Pérez et al. [38,50] for fruit extracts (bananas, grapes, plums) using HPLC-DAD.

“The first application of IL-DLLME for the extraction of pesticides from matrices other than water was recently developed by Ravelo-Pe ´rez et al . [38,50] for the extraction of fruit extracts (bananas [38], and grapes and plums [50]) using HPLC-DAD for the chromatographic analysis.”

IL-DLLME has a drawback of a wide peak at the beginning of the chromatogram corresponding to the IL.

“As can be seen, at the beginning of the chromatogram, there appeared a wide peak, corresponding to the IL - one of the main drawbacks of using IL-DLLME, as already reported [14-19,32,38,47,50,65-67] -although, in this case, it did not interfere at all in the separation.”

In Ravelo-Pérez et al. [38], the IL peak did not interfere with the separation.

“although, in this case, it did not interfere at all in the separation.”

In both Ravelo-Pérez et al. works [38,50], the method was applied to commercial fruit samples, where pesticide residues were found in some but always below MRLs.

“In both works, the method was also applied to the analysis of commercial fruit samples, in which residues of pesticides could be found in some, but always below their MRLs.”