At the present paper, an analytical method based on temperature controlled solid-liquid extraction (TC-SLE) utilizing a synthesized ionic liquid, (N-butylpyridinium hexafluorophosphate, [BPy]PF₆), as solid solvent and phenanthroline (PT) as an extractant was developed to determine micro levels of Fe(2+) in tea by PT spectrophotometry. TC-SLE was carried out in two continuous steps: Fe(2+) can be completely extracted by PT-[BPy]PF₆ or back-extracted at 80 °C and the two phases were separated automatically by cooling to room temperature. Fe(2+), after back-extraction, needs 2 mol/L HNO₃ as stripping agent and the whole process was determined by PT spectrophotometry at room temperature. The extracted species was neutral Fe(PT)mCl₂ (m = 1) according to slope analysis in the Fe(2+)-[BPy]PF₆-PT TC-SLE system. The calibration curve was Y = 0.20856X - 0.000775 (correlation coefficient = 0.99991). The linear calibration range was 0.10-4.50 μg/mL and the limit of detection for Fe(2+) is 7.0 × 10(-2) μg/mL. In this method, the contents of Fe(2+) in Tieguanyin tea were determined with RSDs (n = 5) 3.05% and recoveries in range of 90.6%-108.6%.
Keywords: determination of Fe2+; ionic liquid as solid solvent; tea; temperature controlling solid-liquid separation.