Benzoxazine Porous Organic Polymer as an Efficient Solid-Phase Extraction Adsorbent for the Enrichment of Chlorophenols from Water and Honey Samples

One-step preparation of carboxyl-functionalized porous organic polymer as sorbent for enrichment of phenols in bottled water, juice and honey samples

Herein, a novel carboxyl-functionalized porous organic polymer (COOH-POP) was prepared as sorbent. Due to multiple hydrogen bonds and π-π interactions between COOH-POP and phenols, COOH-POP shows good enrichment ability and very fast adsorption rate for phenols. Then, an analytical method was developed for determination of five phenols (2-chlorophenol, bisphenol A, 2,6-dichlorophenol, 2,4-dichlorophenol and p-tert-butylphenol) in bottled water, lemon juice, peach juice and honey samples using COOH-POP as solid phase extraction sorbent in combination with high performance liquid chromatography. Under optimal conditions, the COOH-POP based method gave the detection limits (S/N = 3) of 0.02-0.10 ng mL-1 for bottled water, 0.03-0.12 ng mL-1 for lemon juice, 0.03-0.25 ng mL-1 for peach juice and 0.7-1.5 ng g-1 for honey samples. The recoveries for spiked samples ranged from 84.0 % to 119.0 % with relative standard deviation less than 7.6 %. This study provides a new yet effective method for enrichment of phenols by designing carboxyl-functionalized porous organic polymer as sorbent.

N-rich hypercrosslinked porous polymers for highly efficient preconcentration and sensitive detection of chlorophenols

Three novel N-rich hypercrosslinked porous polymers (NHCP1, NHCP2, and NHCP3) were facilely developed using Friedel-Crafts alkylation. NHCP1 with a remarkably large surface area (2066 m² g^-1) showed the best adsorption performance for chlorophenol pollutants. A sensitive and simple method was developed by using NHCP1 as a sorbent for solid-phase extraction to preconcentrate several chlorophenols in honey, water, and peach beverage samples followed by determination using a high-performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet detector. The detection wavelength was 280 nm. Under the optimized conditions, the linear ranges were 1.67-1000 ng g^-1 for honey, 0.170-100 ng mL^-1 for water, and 0.330-100 ng mL^-1 for peach beverage samples. The detection limits (S/N = 3) were 0.500-2.00 ng g^-1, 0.0500-0.100 ng mL^-1, and 0.100-0.200 ng mL^-1, respectively. Recovery values were 89.3-111% with relative standard deviations <9.4%. The proposed extraction/preconcentration and quantitative analysis method provides an affordable and effective alternative for the preconcentration and determination of low levels of chlorophenols in real samples.

Ribbon-shaped supramolecular solvents: Synthesis, characterization and potential for making greener the microextraction of water organic pollutants

Liquid-liquid microextraction (LLME) techniques have experienced a tremendous growth over the last years but still face major challenges related to the use of more efficient and environmentally friendly solvents. Supramolecular solvents (SUPRASs) have proved outstanding efficiency in LLME, but many of the experimental conditions required for SUPRAS formation and/or application cannot be considered green or experimentally convenient. This paper was intended to make greener both SUPRAS formation and their application to the LLME of low-concentration organic pollutants in environmental waters. For this purpose, a variety of SUPRASs were produced at room temperature by simply mixing alkyl phosphonates (A_6-12PO₃H^- and A_6-12PO₃^-2) and tetrahexylammonium (He₄N⁺) ions in aqueous media. Among them, the SUPRASs produced from decyl hydrogen phosphonate (DePO₃H^-) and He₄N⁺ allowed, for the first time, the development of SUPRAS-based LLMEs where the SUPRAS previously synthesized was added to the liquid sample, instead of being formed in situ as usual, which was proved particularly advantageous for analyses involving large sample/SUPRAS volume ratios. At near equimolar amounts of DePO₃H^- and He₄N⁺, the amphiphile arranged in the SUPRAS as planar ribbons consisting of water (21 ± 3%, w/v) and DePO₃H^- and He₄N⁺ in the concentration range 1.0-1.4 M. The application of these SUPRASs to LLMEs was proved by extracting carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (CPAHs) from drinking (tap and bottled) and natural (river, reservoir and underground) water (recoveries between 84 and 117% with standard deviations varying between 1 and 14%). The developed method was simple (it only required the addition of 500 μL of SUPRAS to 75 mL of sample, stirring and centrifugation), sensitive (method quantitation limits were below the maximum allowed limits set by the EU; were 0.6-7.1 ng L^-1) and selective (SUPRAS extracts were directly analyzed by liquid chromatography-fluorimetry). This research proves that SUPRASs can be operationally used in LLMEs similarly to conventional solvents, which should favor their routine application in high-sample throughput laboratories.