Central European Journal of Chemistry Dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction and liquid chromatographic determination of pentachlorophenol in water * E-mail: kh.farhadi@urmia.ac.ir Received 28 August 2008; Accepted 21 November 2008 Abstract: A simple and sensitive dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction method for extraction and preconcentration of pentachlorophenol (PCP) in water samples is presented. After adjusting the sample pH to 3, extraction was performed in the presence of 1% W/V sodium chloride by injecting 1 mL acetone as disperser solvent containing 15 µL tetrachloroethylene as extraction solvent. The proposed DLLME method was followed by HPLC-DAD for determination of PCP. It has good linearity (0.994) with wide linear dynamic range (0.1-1000 µg L -1 ) and low detection limit (0.03 µg L -1 ), which makes it suitable for determination of PCP in water samples. © Versita Warsaw and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. Keywords: Dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction • Herbicide • Pentachlorophenol • Water sample • High performance liquid chromatography 1 Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran 2 Department of Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran 3 Research Department of Chromatography, Iranian Academic Center for Education, Culture & Research (ACECR), Urmia, Iran Khalil Farhadi 1* , Mir A. Farajzadeh 2 , Amir A. Matin 1,3 , Paria Hashemi 1,3 Research Article 1. Introduction Pentachlorophenol (PCP) has been used for over ifty years as a herbicide in agriculture and an effective preservative in wood industry [1]. PCP is classiied as the 31st hazardous material in the list of environmental protection agency (EPA) and also it is classiied as a highly dangerous material by the world health organization (WHO) [2,3]. PCP is extremely toxic when ingested by humans; the probable oral lethal dose is 50 to 500 mg kg -1 for a 70 kg person. Acute inhalation exposure to pentachlorophenol in humans may result in death from effects on the circulatory system and accompanying heart failure. Tests involving acute exposure of animals, such as the LC50 and LD50 tests in rats and mice, have shown pentachlorophenol to have high toxicity from inhalation exposure and extreme toxicity from oral exposure.The maximum contamination level (MCL) for PCP in drinking water is regulated at 1 ppb by EPA and 0.5 ppb by European Union [4] and it has various short and long term harmful effects on human health. Short term hazards include central nervous system damage while long term hazards include cancer and damage to the liver, kidneys and reproductive system [2]. It can get accumulated in the food chain due to its lipophilicity and contaminates water and soil [5]. So in order to manage environmental pollution and increase the drinking water quality, there is a vital need to develop more sensitive methods for PCP determination. Various analytical methods such as spectrophotometric [6], liquid chromatographic [7-9], gas chromatographic [10] and electrochemical methods [11] have been developed for this purpose. Despite technological advances in instrumentation of chemical analysis, the resultant sensitivities are Cent. Eur. J. Chem. • 7(3) • 2009 • 369-374 DOI: 10.2478/s11532-009-0013-3 369 Unauthenticated Download Date | 9/21/17 12:14 AM