Fatemeh Yazdankhah - Department of Chemistry, Lorestan University, Khoramabad, Iran,
Ali Reza Ghiasvand - Department of Chemistry, Lorestan University, Khoramabad, Iran,
Mina Behfar - Department of Chemistry, Lorestan University, Khoramabad, Iran,

A low-cost and simple cooling-assisted headspace liquid-phase microextraction (CA-HSLPME) device was fabricated and evaluated for using volatile organic solvents. The main part of this system was a cooling capsule with a microcup (for holding the organic solvent), which is able to directly cool down the extraction phase, while the sample matrix is heated. Factors which might influence the extraction efficiency such as organic drop s fixing design, type of organic extraction solvent, sample temperature, extraction solvent temperature, and extraction time were optimized. The optimal conditions obtained were: extraction solvent: methanol (10 μL); extraction temperature: 60 °C; temperature of the extraction solvent: 0 °C;and extraction time: 20 min. Good linearity of the calibration curve (R2=0.9948) was obtained in the concentration range of 0.01-50.0 μg mL-1. The limit of detection (LOD) was found to be 0.0012 μg mL-1. The relative standard deviation (RSD) for 1.0 μg mL-1 ofsafranal was obtained 10.74% (n=6). The proposed CA-HS-LPME device was coupled to high-performance liquid chromatography with UV detection (HPLC-UV) and used for the extraction and determination of safranal (as a model analyte) in Saffron samples and reasonable agreement observed between the results and those obtained by a validated ultrasonic-assisted solvent extraction (UA-SE) method.

Cooling-assisted microextraction, headspace liquid-phase microextraction,volatile organic solvent, safranal