A salting-out-assisted switchable hydrophilicity solvent-based liquid phase microextraction (SA-SHS-LPME) was developed for the separation and determination of trace amounts of imatinib and N-desmethyl imatinib in biological and environmental samples by HPLC-UV. Triethylamine as a hydrophobic compound and protonated triethylamine carbonate as a hydrophilic one were switched by the addition or elimination of CO2 . The use of NaOH resulted in the elimination of CO2 from the sample solution, which led to the conversion of P-TEA-C into triethylamine (TEA) and as a result, the analytes was extracted and entered the TEA phase. The salting out was performed to speed up the formation of the TEA in the shape of fine droplets in the specimen solution. Furthermore, the impact of several momentous factors that influence the recovery of the extraction was investigated. Under the optimum conditions, the limit of detection and limit of quantification were obtained in ranges of 0.03-0.05 and 0.1-0.15 μg L-1 for imatinib and 0.04-0.06 and 0.13-0.20 μg L-1 for N-desmethyl imatinib, respectively. The preconcentration factor was 250. Inter- and intraday precision (RSD, n = 5) was <5%. In the case of imatinib and N-desmethyl imatinib in biological and environmental specimens, a range of 97.0-102% was obtained as the recovery.
Keywords: HPLC-UV; N-desmethyl imatinib; imatinib; liquid-phase microextraction; salting out; switchable hydrophilicity solvent.
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