Magnetic microsphere-based portable solid phase extraction device for on-site pre-concentration of organics from large-volume water samples

In this research a new magnetic material called M88 was fully synthetized and characterized for the extraction of pharmaceutical and personal care products in water samples. In addition, a portable prototype of magnetic solidphase extraction (MSPE) device was developed for the onsite preconcentration. The MSPE coupling with high performance liquid chromatography-Diode array detector (HPLC-DAD) method was developed and validated for simultaneous analysis of 11 PPCPs (mefenamic acid, chloroamphenicol, ketoprofen, clofibric acid, indometacin, acetylsalicylic acid, bisphenol A, phenylphenol, gemfibrozil, triclosan, and ibuprofen) in environmental water samples. Experimental parameters affecting the extraction efficiencies, such as the amount of M88, desorption solvent, extraction time, and solution pH and sample volume were investigated. Under the optimal conditions, the limits of detection (LODs, S/N = 3) for the selected PPCPs were found to be in the range of 0.7–9.4 ng/L, with good linear correlation coefficients. It is also shown that the extraction efficiency of M88 was comparable to that of the commercial Oasis HLB and was evidently higher than that of the C18 cartridge. The optimised method was further verified by performing spiking experiments in water samples from Taihu Lake, with good recovery and reproducibility for all the compounds.