Experimental design of ligandless sonication-assisted liquid- phases microextraction based on hydrophobic deep eutectic solvents for accurate determination of Pb(II) and Cd(II) from waters and food samples at trace levels.

Abstract A straightforward, accurate and efficient analytical procedure was developed by ligandless sonication-assisted liquid- phases microextraction based on hydrophobic deep eutectic solvents (SA-LPME-HDES) to trace toxic Pb(II) and Cd(II) in waters and foods. Optimization of the SA-LPME-HDES procedure was carried out by Box–Behnken design. Under optimum conditions, linear ranges for Pb(II) and Cd(II) were 0.8–350 (r2:0.9962) and 1.5–500 µg L−1 (r2: 0.9937), respectively. Relative standard deviations (N = 5, 10 µg L−1) were 1.4% for Pb(II) and 1.6% for Cd(II), respectively. Limits of detection were 0.24, and 0.46 µg L−1, respectively. The accuracy was evaluated by the analysis of two certified reference materials and the results were to be in agreement with the certified values. The SA-LPME-HDES method was successfully applied to tap water, mineral water, river water, well-water, sesame, peanut, eggplant, corn, wheat, soy and cucumber. The SA-LPME-HDES method allows operational simplicity, green, and low cost when compared with some microextraction procedure.