Determining uncertainty in a simple UV–Vis spectrometry method employing dimethyl carbonate as green solvent for lead determination in water

[Display omitted] •A simple, cheap and fast analytical method for Pb determination in surface water.•Dimethyl carbonate, green chemistry solvent, was used for Pb determination by DLLME.•Bottom-up measurement uncertainty evaluation was applied in this method.•Relative uncertainty values about 13–14% of Pb concentration in water. The growth of industrial and urban centers promotes water quality issues. Water is one of the greatest sources of human exposure to lead. This study presents a simple, inexpensive, and fast analytical method for determining lead water employing DLLME followed by a UV–Vis spectrophotometer. Dimethyl carbonate (DMC) is used for the first time as the extraction solvent for lead determination. Carbonates are non-toxic, biodegradable green solvents obtained from renewable resources. For optimization, a two-level Full-Factorial Design was used; the selected conditions for 5.0-mL water analysis were DDTP 0.1%, 1.0% phosphoric acid, and 1.0 mL of DMC. This method was successfully validated through the assessment of specificity, linearity (from 0.2 to 1.0 mg L −1), accuracy (90.0% to 102.5%), precision (RSD from 2.6% to 15.0%), and LOQ of 0.2 mg L−1. Bottom-up measurement uncertainty evaluation provides relative uncertainty values around 13% to14% of lead concentration in water.