Simultaneous preconcentration and determination of zirconium in environmental samples using ultrasound-assisted ionic liquid based dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction combined with spectrophotometry

The Green, delicate and rapid ultrasound-assisted ionic liquid-based dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction technique was developed to preconcentrate trace quantities of zirconium Zr(IV) ion in real samples prior to spectrophotometric detection. The proposed method uses (1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium tris(pentafluoroethyl)trifluorophosphate) ionic liquid (IL) as an extraction solvent for Zr(IV) ions after the complexation with quinalizarin at pH 5.0. The effect of various analytical parameters has been investigated. The calibration graph was linear in the range of 2.0-400 mu g L - 1 and the limit of detection was 0.6 mu g L-1. The preconcentration factor was 100. Relative standard deviation (RSD%) at 200 mu g L-1 of Zr(IV)for intra-day and inter-day precisionwere 2.0 and 2.7%, respectively (n = 10). Certified reference materialswere used to verify the accuracy.The proposed method was applied to preconcentrate and determine the content of Zr(IV) in real environmental (water, soil and plants) samples with satisfactory results.