Analytica Chimica Acta 767 (2013) 81–87 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Analytica Chimica Acta j ourna l ho me page: www.elsevier.com/locate/aca Rapid determination of triclosan in personal care products using new in-tube based ultrasound-assisted salt-induced liquid–liquid microextraction coupled with high performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet detection Ming-Jen Chen a,∗ , Ya-Ting Liu a , Chiao-Wen Lin b , Vinoth Kumar Ponnusamy b , Jen-Fon Jen b,∗ a Department of Applied Cosmetology and Graduate Institute of Cosmetic Science, Hungkuang University, Shalu, Taichung 433, Taiwan b Department of Chemistry, National Chung-Hsing University, Taichung 402, Taiwan h i g h l i g h t s ◮ In-tube based salt-induced liquid–liquid ultrasonic microex- traction was developed. ◮ This method is applied for trace anal- ysis of triclosan in personal care products. ◮ This is an efficient, easy, inexpensive and eco-friendly sample preparation method. g r a p h i c a l a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 14 October 2012 Received in revised form 2 January 2013 Accepted 10 January 2013 Available online 18 January 2013 Keywords: In-tube Ultrasound-assisted Salt-induced liquid–liquid microextraction Triclosan Personal care products High performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet detector a b s t r a c t This paper describes the development of a novel, simple and efficient in-tube based ultrasound-assisted salt-induced liquid–liquid microextraction (IT-USA-SI-LLME) technique for the rapid determination of triclosan (TCS) in personal care products by high performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet (HPLC- UV) detection. IT-USA-SI-LLME method is based on the rapid phase separation of water-miscible organic solvent from the aqueous phase in the presence of high concentration of salt (salting-out phenomena) under ultrasonication. In the present work, an indigenously fabricated home-made glass extraction device (8-mL glass tube inbuilt with a self-scaled capillary tip) was utilized as the phase separation device for USA-SI-LLME. After the extraction, the upper extractant layer was narrowed into the self-scaled capillary tip by pushing the plunger plug; thus, the collection and measurement of the upper organic solvent layer was simple and convenient. The effects of various parameters on the extraction efficiency were thor- oughly evaluated and optimized. Under optimal conditions, detection was linear in the concentration range of 0.4–100 ng mL -1 with correlation coefficient of 0.9968. The limit of detection was 0.09 ng mL -1 and the relative standard deviations ranged between 0.8 and 5.3% (n = 5). The applicability of the devel- oped method was demonstrated for the analysis of TCS in different commercial personal care products and the relative recoveries ranged from 90.4 to 98.5%. The present method was proven to be a simple, sensitive, less organic solvent consuming, inexpensive and rapid procedure for analysis of TCS in a variety of commercially available personal care products or cosmetic preparations. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +886 4 22853148; fax: +886 4 22862547. E-mail addresses: mjchen@sunrise.hk.edu.tw (M.-J. Chen), jfjen@dragon.nchu.edu.tw (J.-F. Jen). 1. Introduction Triclosan (5-chloro-2-(2,4-dichlorophenoxy) phenol; TCS) is a non-ionic, chlorinated phenolic compound that is frequently employed as antimicrobial, antibacterial and preservative agent 0003-2670/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aca.2013.01.014