Artemisia argyi essential oil as a green extraction solvent for in-syringe kapok fiber-supported liquid-phase microextraction and determination of triazole fungicide residues

In this study, Artemisia argyi essential oil (AAEO), extracted from the leaves of Artemisia argyi, was employed as a green extraction solvent for in-syringe kapok fiber-supported liquid-phase microextraction (KF-SLME) of hydrophobic compounds in aqueous samples. The wheat of natural kapok fiber as the support medium was 2 mg, and the optimum volume of the extraction solvent AAEO was 12.5 μL. The volume of green desorption solvent 75 % ethanol was 100 μL, which realized a highly environmentally friendly sample preparation method. By simply pulling and pushing the syringe plunger five times, the extraction process enabled rapid and convenient enrichment of analytes while removing most interferences. Coupled with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), the AAEO-based in-syringe SLME method was applied as a proof-of-concept study to determine triazole fungicides (TFs) residues in fruit juices, herbal oral liquids and herbal extract granules. Employing in-syringe KF-SLME prior to LC-MS/MS detection significantly reduced the limits of quantification (LOQs) by 5–50-fold. The integrated AAEO-based in-syringe KF-SLME-LC-MS/MS method demonstrated satisfactory linearity (R2 ≥ 0.995), accuracies (86.5 %–115.1 %), and precisions (1.2 %–12.7 %) using an isotope calibration method. Furthermore, three greenness assessment metrics uniformly highlighted its outstanding environmental friendliness. The proposed method offers competitive advantages in terms of its environmentally friendly approach, detection sensitivity, analysis cost, and operational convenience.