Acrylamide (AA) is a common food processing contaminant that forms during high-temperature food processing, necessitating sensitive and reliable analytical methods for its determination in complex food matrices. Conventional techniques require costly instrumentation, significant sample preparation, and expert operation. As a result, there is an increasing demand for simple, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly analytical methods that allow for rapid and accurate AA monitoring in food samples. In this study, deep eutectic solvent-based liquid–liquid microextraction (DES-LLME) combined with thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and smartphone digital image colorimetry (SDIC) was developed for the determination of AA in food samples. The final extract, obtained after DES-LLME, was applied onto a TLC plate positioned inside a custom-made colorimetric box and images were captured and split into their red, green, and blue channels; the blue channel intensity exhibiting the highest sensitivity was used for AA quantification after being derivatized with 4-fluoro-2-nitro-5-(piperazin-1-yl) aniline within a reaction time of 5.0 min. Optimum DES-LLME performance was achieved using 300 µL of a choline chloride/phenol (1:4 molar ratio) DES as the extraction solvent, 400 µL of acetonitrile as the demulsification solvent, and a 1.0-min extraction time. Optimum SDIC conditions included an 8.0-cm distance between the TLC plate and the detection camera, illumination at a wavelength of 405 nm with 100.0% brightness from a top-mounted light source. Limits of detection and quantitation were 0.40 and 1.33 µg mg− 1, respectively, with coefficients of determination (R2) exceeding 0.9951 and relative standard deviation below 7.4%. The proposed DES-LLME-TLC-SDIC method was successfully applied to quantify AA in various food matrices, including baby food, biscuits, coffee, dark chocolate, and potato chips, yielding relative recoveries between 87.5% and 106.3%. The proposed DES-LLME-TLC-SDIC method provides a reliable, cost-effective and practical technique for the determination of AA in food samples. Its successful application to diverse food matrices and satisfactory analytical performance highlight its potential for routine food analysis.
Ghawi et al. (2026) studied this question.