Novel Monolithic Adsorbent for Phthalate Extraction from Water

Abstract

Abstract-A novel synthesis of C-18 silica monolithic material in a glass syringe was achieved via a sol-gel method using tetramethoxy othosilicate (TMOS) and trimethoxy(octadecyl)silane (C18-TMOS) as precursors to control surface and pores. The main problems of typical silica monolith fabrication were cracking and shrinkage; however, such problems were solved by a two-step synthesis in this work. It was confirmed by scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of the monolithic structure that the interconnected particle size was averagely 1 µm. The solid adsorbent was employed in extraction and pre-concentration step of volatile phthalate esters from water prior to quantitative determination by gas chromatography with mass spectrometric detection (GC-MS). %Recovery of phthalate esters was in a range of 76-111%, with the detection limits of 1.29-7.28 µg L , with correlation coefficients of more than 0.999. The results show that excellent C18-silica monolithic preparation method was achieved with very high active surface area, and the adsorbent is applicable for phthalate extraction from environmental matrices.