Evaluation of electro membrane extraction based on green chemistry for determination of glyphosate in water samples

Glyphosate (N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine) is a non-selective post emergent herbicide for the control of weeds (Figure 1), it is perhaps the most widely used herbicide in the world (Gill et al., 2017). Glyphosate is generally considered as safe (Duke and Powles, 2008). however, its wide application and its persistence worry environmentalists and medical doctors, in particular its possible association with non-Hodgkin‟s lymphoma (Schinasi and Leon, 2014). They seem not pose any major health threats, however, due to their persistence and the large quantities applied worldwide, they have become a source of concern.Materials and methods:Thus determination and quantification of this herbicide is very important. Glyphosate cannot be directly detected by UV-Vis spectrophotometry, which complicates their determination. Their high solubility in water also complicates strategies involving the extraction with other solvents. Hence, one can find in literature several analytical methodologies that make use of derivatizing agents (per example, heptafluorobutanol and trifluoroacetic acid anhydride), with a wide variety of applied instrumental techniques of detection and/or separation (Seralii and et. al.,).Whereas the amount of this herbicide in environmental samples is very low, thus developing an efficient microextraction technique is necessary.Result and discussion: In this study, for the first time, electromembrane extaction combined with HPLC was used for determination of glyphosate in aqueous samples. During past decade, EME have been applied for the extraction of acidic drugs, basic drugs, and metal ions. But best of our knowledge, this is first report for extraction of glyphosate with EME procedure. Also in this study, gel agarose as green membrane was used and no organ solvents were applied. The results showed that limit of detection for glyphosate was 1.5 μg ml-1, and relative standard deviation for proposed method was lower than 5.8% which it means this method has acceptable repeatability. Whereas the fabrication and setup of this method is very easy with low price, this new type of membrane opens new horizons in other applications.