An alkyl polyglucoside-based switchable ternary supramolecular solvent for efficient enrichment of hepatotoxic...

A switchable supramolecular solvent based dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction method was developed for the preconcentration and determination of six main hepatotoxic ingredients in Chinese herbal medicine of "Psoraleae Fructus" combined with high performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet detection. Based on the biodegradable alkyl polyglucoside and a switchable deep eutectic solvent composed of diethanolamine and hexanoic acid, a hydrophilic supramolecular solvent was prepared for the extraction of the target analytes from the aqueous sample solution, and the phase separation was obtained by adding hydrochloric acid solution. A combination of one-factor-at-a-time and central composite design was employed to investigate the primary factors influencing the extraction efficiency, including the composition and volume of alkyl polyglucoside-based switchable supramolecular solvent, the type and dosage of phase-switching trigger, extraction time and salt concentration of the sample solution. Under the optimal extraction conditions, the performance metrics of the proposed method were validated, demonstrating good linearity (r ≥ 0.9979), low detection limits, satisfactory precisions (relative standard deviation≤6.4%) and spiked recoveries (90.3%-107.8%). The enrichment factors for six target analytes ranged from 64 to 666 greater than the published reports. The formation of the supramolecular solvent was characterized by utilizing Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The extraction mechanism was elucidated by analytes properties, theoretical calculation and the molecular docking. The greenness of the proposed method was assessed by AGREE and AGREEprep tools. The established method possessed good extraction efficiency and could effectively enrich the components with varying polarities in complex matrices.