Curcumin is one of the important food additives for spice and natural pigment, from turmeric. Turmeric is derived from the rhizomes of Curcuma longa L. and gives yellow color to turmeric and is responsible for most of the therapeutic effects of turmeric. It has been shown to possess variouspharmaceutical functions, such as anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, anti-ageing, neuro-protection in Alzheimer’s disease and manyother functions. Because of extensive use of Curcumin, determination of low amount of it by a suitable method is required. In this work, a simple, cheap and rapid new dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction (DLLME) technique, in a narrow-bore tube, coupled to UV-Vis spectrophotometry (NT-DLLME-UV) was applied for the extraction and preconcentration of curcuminin Turmericand spaghetti. The extraction processes was performed in a narrow-bore tube containing aqueous sample. After extraction, a microdrop of extraction solvent which was collected above the tube was injected into a quarts microcell and was analyzed with a UV-Vis spectrophotometer (λmax=427nm). Effective parameters of the method such as type and volume of extraction anddisperser solvents, aqueous sample volume, salt effect and pH were investigated and optimized. Under the optimized condition the enrichment factor (EF) and the limit of detection (LOD) were 176 and 30 µg L-1, respectively. And relative standard deviation was achieved 4.2%. Finally, the proposed NT-DLLME-UV strategy was successfully carried out for determination of curcumin in turmeric and spaghetti samples. Base on the obtained results, the NT-DLLME-UV method was shown to be suitable for determination of curcumin in aqueous samples.
