The comparison of two microextraction methods for the determination of safranal from Iranian saffron

In this study, safranal as the main component of the pleasant aroma of saffron was extracted and analyzed by two liquid-phase microextraction based methods, namely ultrasound-assisted emulsification microextraction and solidified floating organic drop microextraction. These methods are fast, simple, low-cost, environmentally friendly and efficient procedures that have been developed for the determination of safranal from aqueous samples. Extracted safranal was determined by high pressure liquid chromatography and the performance of the above mentioned methods was compared accurately. A narrow neck glass tube was used for the simple and rapid collection of the low-density organic phase from the sample surface after its centrifugation. A dynamic range over 0.1 to 5ug mL^-1 of safranal and limit of detection of 20ng mL^-1 were obtained for ultrasound-assisted emulsification microextraction. In addition, the dynamic range for solidified floating organic drop microextraction was between 0.02 to 5ug mL^-1 as well as a limit of detection of 3ng mL^-1 was obtained. Furthermore, the enrichment factor and recovery percent were 38 and 101+-4.6% in ultrasound-assisted emulsification microextraction besides 252 and 25.2+-5.8% in solidified floating organic drop microextraction. The applicability of the proposed methods was evaluated by the extraction and determination of safranal from different Iranian saffron samples and finally, the results were validated by the ISO 3632 procedure.