LAUSR

ABSTRACT The parabens, which are harmful to our bodies, are primarily utilized as preservatives in medicine, personal care products and cosmetics. A novel, more efficient, fast and cheap vortex-assisted liquid phase microextraction method based on deep eutectic solvents (DESs) was developed for the determination of parabens. The microextraction conditions were optimized using these solvents and the analytical parameters of the method were determined under optimal microextraction conditions. After extraction, the chromatographic separation of parabens was undertaken using high-performance liquid chromatography-UV detection. Experimental parameters, such as DES type, DES volume, dilution solvent volume and vortex extraction time were optimized. DES6 [ChCl-Ethylene glycol (1/2)] was the most suitable DES to work in this study. Detection limits for this method of 0.053 µg mL−1 for methylparaben, 0.061 µg mL−1 for ethylparaben, 0.049 µg mL−1 for propylparaben and 0.052 µg mL−1 for butylparaben were obtained. Correlation coefficients (R2) for a concentration range of 0.1–100 µg mL−1 were higher than 0.9992 and relative standard deviation (RSD) values below 2.91% at parabens concentration of 2.5 µg mL−1 were obtained. The results of spike/recovery values of real samples were greater than 84%. When compared with other methods, the main advantages include lower LOD, short extraction time, rapidity, repeatability and simplicity.