Magnetic Polyeugenol Nanoparticles as a New Sorbent for Solid‐Phase Extraction of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Environmental Water and Food Samples

Abstract

In this study, the magnetized polyeugenol was applied as an efficient adsorbent for pre‐concentration of five target polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), acenaphthene, fullerene, phenanthrene, fluoranthene and pyrene, in the aqueous samples. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy, energy‐dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, thermo‐gravimetric and zeta‐potential analyses, and vibration sample magnetometry were utilized for characterization of the prepared nanocomposite. Key parameters in the extraction efficiency of PAHs including pH, salt content, adsorbent amount, extraction time and volume of desorption solvent were optimized. Under the optimal conditions, a linear response was observed in the concentration range of 1–75 μg L−1 (R2=0.9980–0.9994). The reasonable relative standard deviations (RSDs) from 3.46 to 5.74 (n=3) were also obtained. The enrichment coefficients were calculated to be 17 as the minimum and 20 as the maximum. The obtained limits of detection and limit of quantitation were respectively in range of 0.09–0.19 μg L−1 and 0.32–0.56 μg L−1. Finally, the adsorbent was used to measure the PAHs content of real samples including tap water, river water and brewed tea. The recoveries were between 80.0 %–100.4 % (for tap water) and 91.1 %–100.5 % (for river water) and 83.4 %–102.1 % (for tea sample).