Jinhua Luo†
a,
Liping Jiang†ab,
Guihua Ruanb,
Chengyong Li*ac and
Fuyou Du
*ab
aCollege of Biological and Environmental Engineering, Changsha University, Changsha 410022, China. E-mail: lyong92@163.com; dufu2005@126.com; Fax: +86-731-84250583; Tel: +86-731-84261506
bCollege of Chemistry and Bioengineering, Guilin University of Technology, Guangxi 541004, China
cHunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Nutrition and Quality Control of Aquatic Animals, Changsha University, Changsha 410022, China
First published on 8th June 2021
In this work, a metal–organic framework MIL-68(In)–NH2 incorporated high internal phase emulsion polymeric monolith (MIL-68(In)–NH2/polyHIPE) was prepared and applied as a solid phase extraction adsorbent for the extraction and detection of trace triazine herbicides in environmental water samples by coupling with HPLC-UV detection. The fabricated material showed good adsorption for simazine, prometryn, and prometon in water samples because of π–π interactions and hydrogen bonding interactions. Under optimal conditions, the maximum adsorption capacity of simazine, prometon and prometryn was 800 μg g−1, 800 μg g−1 and 6.01 mg g−1, respectively. The linearities were 10–800 ng mL−1 for simazine, prometon and prometryn. The limits of detection were 31–97 ng L−1, and the recoveries were 85.6–118.2% at four spiked levels with relative standard deviations lower than 5.0%. The method has a high sensitivity for the determination of three triazine herbicides in environmental water samples.
Generally, herbicide residues are likely to exist in different water samples at low concentration, therefore, effective sample preparation is necessary before instrumental detection in order to improve method sensitivity and accuracy and/or prevent the used apparatus from damaging by other interferents.4–10 Among various sample preparation, solid phase extraction (SPE) is the most widely used extraction technique for extracting triazine herbicides from water samples because of its advantages of high recovery, high enrichment factor, low solvent consumption, and short extraction time.2–6 As a result, various SPE adsorbents, including oxidized single-walled carbon nanohorns,2 triazine rings-containing porous aromatic frameworks,3 poly(high internal phase emulsions) (polyHIPEs),5,6 molecular imprinted polymers,4,11,12 carbazole-based porous organic polymers,13 hydrazone-based covalent triazine polymers,14 and metal–organic frameworks (MOFs)15–18 have been fabricated and applied in the SPE of triazine herbicides in environmental samples. Among these SPE adsorbents, MOFs were possessed of high adsorption and separation performance, owing to their remarkable merits like large surface area, adjustable pore size, diverse structures, as well as great chemical and thermal stability.19–21 On the other hand, polyHIPEs were also highly interconnected porous materials with distinct characteristics such as highly interconnected pore architecture, tunable porosity, controllable cavity, large surface areas, and adjustable functions,22–24 however, depending on the high porosity polyHIPEs for separation applications usually suffer from insufficient mechanical properties (strength, modulus and ductility).25–27 Thus, enhancement of mechanical properties by using a variety of approaches, such as selecting new functional monomer systems, using medium internal phase emulsions instead of HIPEs to obtain higher density polyHIPEs, and especially combining HIPE templates with organic or inorganic particles to form composite structures, was very important to achieve improved polyHIPEs for separation applications.25–27 Based on their advantages of MOFs and polyHIPEs, MOFs as particle stabilizers were introduced to fabricate MOFs functionalized polyHIPEs (MOFs–polyHIPEs), which exhibited synergistic advantages in separation applications.28–30 In addition, HPLC method is a rapid, sensitive and reproducible way to determine trace analytes in complex samples,31–34 and thus has been used to analyse triazine herbicides.3,5,6,12,18 To the best of our knowledge, however, MOFs–polyHIPEs as SPE adsorbents have not been reported in the separation and analysis of triazine herbicides by combining with HPLC method.
In this work, an amine functionalized indium-based MOF MIL-68(In)–NH2 was prepared and then used as particle stabilizers to fabricate MIL-68(In)–NH2 functionalized polyHIPEs (MIL-68(In)–NH2/polyHIPEs) by polymerization of Pickering high internal phase emulsions (HIPEs) of MIL-68(In)–NH2, surfactant sorbitan monooleate (Span 80), 2-ethylhexyl acrylate (EHA) and divinylbenzene (DVB). The resulting MIL-68(In)–NH2/polyHIPEs as SPE adsorbents were used to separate some triazine herbicides from environmental water samples. The three most commonly used triazine herbicides (simazine, prometon and prometryn) in local pesticide store were chosen as the analytes. After monolithic SPE, the analytes were detected by HPLC-UV, and a satisfactory result was achieved.
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Fig. 1 Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra (A) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image (B) of MIL-68(In)–NH2/polyHIPEs (a, MIL-68(In)–NH2; b, MIL-68(In)–NH2/polyHIPEs). |
According to the SEM images shown in Fig. 1B, MIL-68(In)–NH2/polyHIPEs were cross-linked porous materials with an open-cell structure, which make them very promising materials for separation application because of their superiority in high permeability and fast mass transfer.
The sample pH value can affect extraction efficiency by influencing the existing forms of simazine (pKa 1.62), prometon (pKa 4.36) and prometryn (pKa 4.05) because of the protonation and de-protonation reactions,3,5,6 thus the effect of the sample pH on their recoveries was investigated. As a result in Fig. 2A, the extraction recovery of simazine decreased slowly with pH increasing from 4 to 8 and then increased with further increasing pH to 10, while the recoveries of prometon and prometryn were not obviously changed with increase of pH from 4 to 11, which were different from the reported results.3,5 The main reason was attributed to the strong π–π interactions and hydrogen bonding interactions between the investigated triazine herbicides and MIL-68(In)–NH2/polyHIPEs.36 Subsequently, the sample pH was kept at 4.0 for subsequent experiments.
Fig. 2B showed that the recoveries of simazine, prometon and prometryn remained unchanged when the sample flow rate increased from 0.2 to 0.8 mL min−1, and then decreased with further increase of sample flow rate to 1.2 mL min−1. When the sample flow rate was 1.0 mL min−1, the recoveries of the three triazine herbicides were higher than 85%, therefore, 1.0 mL min−1 was chosen in order to reasonably reduce the extraction time.
A satisfactory desorption solvent should efficiently desorb the adsorbed analytes, and thus different desorption solvent including methanol, acetone, acetonitrile, 30% (v/v) and 70% (v/v) acetonitrile were investigated to elute the three triazine herbicides. The results shown in Fig. 2C revealed that all five solvents could desorb triazine herbicides from MIL-68(In)–NH2/polyHIPEs, however, methanol and 30% (v/v) acetonitrile were not good for elution of prometryn. On the other hand, acetonitrile was a component of the mobile phase in this work, therefore, acetonitrile was finally chosen as desorption solvent. Furthermore, the volume of acetonitrile varying in 1.0–4.0 mL was investigated in order to effectively elute the adsorbed triazine herbicides. The obtained results showed that simazine and prometon were completely eluted when 2.0 mL acetonitrile was used, while the extraction recovery of prometryn increased from 72.8% to 107.0% with increase of acetonitrile volume from 1.0 to 4.0 mL (Fig. 2D). When the volume of acetonitrile was 3.0 mL, the extraction recoveries of three triazine herbicides were higher than 95.6%, so 3.0 mL acetonitrile was chosen for the elution in this work.
To obtain high concentration factor, different sample volumes ranging from 5 to 35 mL were investigated. As can be observed from Fig. 2E, high recoveries (>85.5%) were obtained for all three triazine herbicides when the sample volumes were not higher than 30 mL, and a slight decline of recoveries was observed for the three analytes with further increase of sample volumes to 35 mL. Thus, 30 mL of sample solution was chosen in this work.
Under the optimized conditions, the mean recoveries of simazine, prometon and prometryn in water samples by using the MIL-68(In)–NH2/polyHIPEs monoliths were 85.6%, 90.2%, and 92.5%, respectively, which indicated that the selected extraction conditions were appropriate for the SPE of trace triazine herbicides from environmental water samples. In addition, the maximum adsorption capacities of MIL-68(In)–NH2/polyHIPEs and polyHIPEs monoliths for triazine herbicides were evaluated, and the obtained results showed that the maximum adsorption capacity of MIL-68(In)–NH2/polyHIPEs towards simazine, prometon and prometryn was 800 μg g−1, 800 μg g−1 and 6.01 mg g−1, respectively, higher than that of polyHIPEs towards simazine (400 μg g−1), prometon (662.6 μg g−1) and prometryn (5.20 mg g−1), which demonstrated that the incorporated MIL-68(In)–NH2 could obviously improve the extraction ability of polyHIPEs.
Analyze | Spiked (ng mL−1) | River water | Lake water | Pond water | Farmland water | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Found (±SD, ng mL−1) | Recovery (%) | RSD (%) | Found (±SD, ng mL−1) | Recovery (%) | RSD (%) | Found (±SD, ng mL−1) | Recovery (%) | RSD (%) | Found (±SD, ng mL−1) | Recovery (%) | RSD (%) | ||
a All water samples were collected from Guilin, China. | |||||||||||||
Simazine | 0 | 4.90 (±0.10) | 2.1 | 6.65 (±0.13) | 1.9 | 11.96 (±0.47) | 3.9 | 17.58 (±0.47) | 2.7 | ||||
5 | 9.78 (±0.26) | 97.6 | 2.7 | 12.01 (±0.25) | 107.2 | 2.1 | 17.09 (±0.60) | 102.6 | 3.5 | 22.35 (±0.45) | 95.4 | 2.0 | |
20 | 27.33 (±0.30) | 112.1 | 1.1 | 27.92 (±0.31) | 106.3 | 1.1 | 31.42 (±1.16) | 97.3 | 3.7 | 37.11 (±0.26) | 97.6 | 0.7 | |
50 | 49.99 (±0.70) | 90.2 | 1.4 | 57.60 (±0.81) | 101.9 | 1.4 | 59.78 (±2.39) | 95.6 | 4.0 | 63.43 (±1.14) | 91.7 | 1.8 | |
100 | 117.14 (±0.82) | 112.2 | 0.7 | 122.29 (±1.83) | 115.6 | 1.5 | 111.19 (±3.22) | 99.2 | 2.9 | 105.92 (±0.85) | 88.3 | 0.8 | |
Prometon | 0 | 4.37 (±0.08) | 1.9 | 3.91 (±0.12) | 3.1 | 4.01 (±0.10) | 2.6 | 2.99 (±0.14) | 4.6 | ||||
5 | 9.99 (±0.18) | 112.4 | 1.8 | 9.08 (±0.31) | 103.4 | 3.4 | 8.72 (±0.23) | 94.2 | 2.6 | 7.68 (±0.31) | 93.8 | 4.1 | |
20 | 28.02 (±0.20) | 118.2 | 0.7 | 24.19 (±0.56) | 101.4 | 2.3 | 22.40 (±0.38) | 92.0 | 1.7 | 21.43 (±0.92) | 92.2 | 4.3 | |
50 | 53.02 (±0.53) | 95.3 | 1.0 | 53.96 (±0.43) | 100.1 | 0.8 | 49.66 (±1.19) | 91.3 | 2.4 | 45.77 (±0.23) | 85.6 | 0.5 | |
100 | 96.41 (±1.06) | 92.0 | 1.1 | 104.04 (±0.94) | 100.2 | 0.9 | 96.45 (±1.25) | 92.4 | 1.3 | 95.73 (±1.53) | 92.7 | 1.6 | |
Prometryn | 0 | 1.77 (±0.05) | 2.6 | 1.64 (±0.04) | 2.7 | 1.60 (±0.06) | 3.5 | 0.96 (±0.05) | 4.8 | ||||
5 | 6.73 (±0.21) | 99.2 | 3.1 | 6.28 (±0.18) | 92.8 | 2.8 | 6.72 (±0.21) | 102.4 | 3.1 | 5.82 (±0.23) | 97.2 | 3.9 | |
20 | 23.27 (±0.51) | 107.5 | 2.2 | 19.46 (±0.39) | 89.1 | 2.0 | 21.31 (±0.15) | 98.6 | 0.7 | 19.39 (±0.78) | 92.2 | 4.0 | |
50 | 55.71 (±1.39) | 107.9 | 2.5 | 46.77 (±0.70) | 90.3 | 1.5 | 51.29 (±1.80) | 99.4 | 3.5 | 51.09 (±0.77) | 100.3 | 1.5 | |
100 | 101.75 (±0.31) | 100.0 | 0.3 | 103.52 (±2.59) | 101.9 | 2.5 | 112.27 (±0.79) | 110.7 | 0.7 | 105.30 (±0.63) | 104.3 | 0.6 |
The calibration curves were attained by analyzing a series of standard solution (10–800 ng mL−1), and good linearity was achieved with correlation coefficient (R2) higher than 0.9990. The LODs, calculated based on signal-to-noise ratios (S/N) of 3, were in the range of 0.031–0.097 ng mL−1, which were below the MRLs for the target triazine herbicides in environmental water samples legislated by European Union (0.10 ng mL−1).2,3 The intra-day and inter-day precisions were evaluated by analyzing five replicated spiked samples (20, 50 and 100 ng mL−1) for a day and once a day for five consecutive days. The obtained results showed that the recoveries were 90.2–118.5%, the intra-day and inter-day precisions (expressed as relative standard deviations, RSDs) were 1.7–2.5% and 2.1–5.3%, respectively, which indicated that the method precision was good.
To verify the accuracy of the proposed method, four real water samples including river water, lake water, pond water and farmland water spiked at four concentrations (5, 20, 50, and 100 ng mL−1) were analyzed. The recoveries were in the range of 85.6–118.2% with RSDs of 0.30–4.8% for all water samples (Table 2). In addition, the same MIL-68(In)–NH2/polyHIPEs monoliths were repeatedly used for extraction of triazine herbicides from water samples, and the results was shown in Fig. 2F. Based on the recovery results, the extraction ability of MIL-68(In)–NH2/polyHIPEs monoliths towards simazine, prometon and prometryn was not obviously decreased after replicate extraction 20 times. By comparing with the SEM images of MIL-68(In)–NH2/polyHIPEs before and after 20 circle times, similar microstructure was observed, which suggested that the MIL-68(In)–NH2/polyHIPEs monoliths have stability and reusability along with a potential in practical applications.
Compared with the other reported methods presented in Table 3, the proposed method in this work has a desirable LOD, recovery, and repeatability with UV detection for the simultaneous determination of multiple triazine herbicides, therefore, the MIL-68(In)–NH2/polyHIPEs based SPE-HPLC method was sensitive, reliable and practically feasible for simultaneously separating and analyzing the trace levels of multiple triazine herbicides in water samples.
Sample matrix | Sample volume (mL) | Extraction time (min) | SPE adsorbent | Detection method | LOD (μg L−1) | Recovery (%) | Reference |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Water | 10 | 2 | Single-walled carbon nanohorns | GC-MS | 0.015–0.100 | 87–94 | 2 |
Maize leaf | 10 | 55 | Porous aromatic frameworks | HPLC-DAD | 0.037–0.089 | 85.1–115 | 3 |
Water | 2 | 10 | Carbonized polyGO/HIPEs | HPLC-DAD | 2.5–5.6 | >90 | 5 |
Soil | 20 | 10 | polyHIPEs-carboxylated carbon nanotube | HPLC-UV | — | 87.56–97.67 | 6 |
Tobacco | 2 | — | Simetryn imprinted nanoparticles | HPLC-MS/MS | 6–30 | 84.03–119.05 | 12 |
Water | 5 | About 9 | MIL-101 (Cr)/chitosan sponge column | HPLC-MS/MS | 0.014–0.045 | 78.9–118.6 | 18 |
Water | 30 | 30 | MIL-68(In)–NH2/polyHIPEs | HPLC-UV | 0.031–0.097 | 85.6–118.2 | This work |
Footnote |
† Jinhua Luo and Liping Jiang contributed equally to this work. |
This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2021 |