Enrichment and determination of trace estradiol in environmental water samples by hollow-fiber liquid-phase microextraction prior to HPLC.

This paper presents a novel and simple cleanup procedure based on hollow fiber liquid-phase microextraction (HF-LPME) for the determination of trace estradiol in environmental. Estradiol was extracted from a 140-mL water sample (the donor phase) into the pores of the hollow fiber wall organic solvent, then into the organic solvent (the acceptor phase) in the lumen of the hollow fiber. Afterwards, the hollow fiber was eluted with methanol to capture estradiol from the acceptor phase. Different experimental parameters, including the organic phase type and its volume, compositions of the donor phases, ionic strength, stirring rate, temperature, and the extraction times were controlled and optimized based on the response of the HPLC instrument. Under the optimized experimental conditions, the proposed method was found to be linear in the concentration of 1-1000 ng/mL for estradiol, and the limit of detection was 0.1 ng/mL. Furthermore, the method provided a good enrichment factor of 300, and repeatability (relative standard deviation = 5.5). Finally, the proposed method was applied for the analysis of real environmental samples.