Preconcentration of polar phenolic compounds from water samples and soil extract by liquid-phase microextraction and determination via liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection

Abstract

This work proposes a liquid-phase microextraction (LPME) method to extract the highly polar compounds phenol (Ph), o-cresol (o-Cr), m-cresol (m-Cr), p-cresol (p-Cr), and 2,4-dimethylphenol (2,4-DMP) from aqueous matrices. The first extraction step of the LPME method employed a common volumetric flask and n-octanol, and the second extraction step used NaOH as the acceptor phase. The optimized extraction conditions were 900 μL of n-octanol as the extraction solvent, NaOH at 0.60 mol L(-1) as the acceptor phase, an extraction time of 5.0 min, HCl at 0.01 mol L(-1) and NaCl at 20.0% as the donor phase, and an extraction temperature of 20.0°C. The analysis of 50.0 mL of aqueous sample, pretreated under the optimized LPME conditions, afforded a limit of detection (LOD) between 0.3 and 3.5 μg L(-1), a limit of quantification (LOQ) between 1.2 and 11.6 μg L(-1), and a linear range from 2.50 to 50.0 μg L(-1) for Ph, o-Cr, m-Cr and p-Cr and from 12.5 to 250 μg L(-1) for 2,4-DMP. The proposed LPME method was a successful sample preparation strategy, and allowed for precise and accurate quantification of polar phenolic compounds in aqueous matrices such as tap water, river water, groundwater, and seawater, and also in a soil extract. The recovery values ranged from 72.5% to 126.0%, and the relative standard deviation was between 0.3 and 11.5%.

Multi-template imprinted polymers for simultaneous selective solid-phase extraction of six phenolic compounds in water samples followed by determination using capillary electrophoresis

“…Phenolic compounds especially chlorinated ones are toxic and persistent in environment with low concentration, which have been included in the list of priority pollutants devised by European Union and United State Environmental Protection Agent [1]. For the enrichment of trace/ultra-trace level phenolic compounds, many kinds of traditional and novel pretreatment techniques have been proposed, such as, cloud point extraction [2], liquid phase microextraction [3], dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction [4], solid-phase extraction (SPE) [5], magnetic extraction [6], solidphase microextraction [7] and stir-bar sorptive extraction [8]. Among them, SPE as a convenient and easy to automate technique has been widely used in environment, food and biological fields [9].…”

Activated carbon obtained from sapelli wood sawdust by microwave heating for o-cresol adsorption

“…Phenols are pollutants whose presence at even low concentration can seriously impact on water use and reuse. Phenols are commonly found in wastewater generated from petrochemical, steel, and phenol-producing industries as well as coal conversion [1].…”

“…Many phenols are hazardous contaminants because of their toxicity to the environment and living beings [2,3]. Ingestion of water contaminated with high phenol content can cause serious gastrointestinal damage, muscle tremors, difficulty in walking, and death in animals [1,3]. Therefore, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations try to lower the phenol content in wastewater to below 1 lg mL -1 [4].…”

Comparison of Carbon‐based Electrodes for Detection of Cresols in Voltammetry and HPLC with Electrochemical Detection

“…Several instrumental analytical methods have been developed for selective and sensitive determination of phenols including cresol isomers in various matrices (e. g., urine, waste water, air, and oils), such as high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with several detection modes including electrochemical detection [17][18][19][20], UV/VIS [7,15,[21][22][23][24], diode array detection [25], fluorescence [26], and tandem mass spectrometric (MS/ MS) [10,14] detection. Gas chromatography coupled with MS [9,[11][12]27], flame ionization detector [8,13,16], or capillary electrophoresis [28] have also been utilized.…”