Anisaldehyde-based deep eutectic solvent dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction (DES-DLLME) followed by UPLC–MS/MS for simultaneous determination of selected parabens and bisphenols in food products: Method development and assessment of the ecological implications

A rapid and environmentally friendly method based on dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction (DLLME) technique, coupled with UPLC–MS/MS analysis was employed for simultaneous determination of selected bisphenols and parabens residues in food products. In this research, anisaldehyde and decanoic acid with a molar ration of 3:1 was prepared as a natural deep eutectic extracting solvent. Various extraction parameters such as the volume of the natural deep eutectic solvent, vortex duration, centrifugation duration, sample volume and pH were systematically explored and optimized. Determination coefficients of ≥0.9990 were achieved for the analyzed compounds under the optimal conditions. The limits detection were in the range of 0.0005 to 0.02 µg/L, while extraction recoveries ranged from 97.8 % to 100.2 % with relative standard deviations (%RSD) not exceeding 6.8 %. To assess the practical applicability of the proposed method, it was employed for the determination of five parabens and three bisphenols in eighty food products including soft drinks, energy drinks, sauces and juices collected from the Saudi market. The environmental implications of the proposed method were assessed using the following evaluation tools, Eco-Scale Assessment (ESA), Green Analytical Procedure Index (GAPI) and Analytical GREEnness metric (AGREE). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to determine the investigated analytes using anisaldehyde based deep eutectic solvent.