Amylodextrin hydrogel as a green sorbent for pipette-tip micro-solid phase extraction followed by ion mobility spectrometry for analysis of triazole fungicides in environmental water samples

Abstract

Triazole compounds have been globally used for controlling fungal diseases such as rusts, powdery mildew, and many leaf-spotting fungi. These compounds also have adverse effects on the environment and human health. In the present work, a hydrogel-based sorbent was synthesized by a combination of hydrophilic acrylic polymer and biodegradable amylodextrin. The sorbent was characterized by Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area, elemental CHN analysis, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), and zeta potential. The synthesized hydrogel was used as a green sorbent in the pipette-tip micro-solid phase extraction procedure for extraction and quantification of triazole fungicides (penconazole, hexaconazole, and tebuconazole) in environmental water samples. The corona discharge-ion mobility spectrometry (CD-IMS) was used as a rapid and sensitive detection technique. The effects of important variables on the extraction efficiency were optimized by response surface methodology (RSM). The proposed method provided good linearity (r2 ≥ 0.995) over a concentration range of 0.5–1000 ng/mL, acceptable intra-day RSD (≤ 5.7%, n = 5) and inter-day RSD (≤ 8.7%, n = 5), low limits of detection (0.10–0.20 ng/mL), good preconcentration factors (16.9–17.9 times), and high extraction recoveries (93.1–98.3%) under optimum extraction conditions. The extraction conditions were as follows: the amount of sorbent: 6.0 mg, pH of sample solution: 7.5, the flow rate of sample solution: 2.0 mL/min, adsorption time: 16.5 min, volume of desorption solvent: 1.1 mL, the flow rate of desorption solvent: 0.5 mL/min, and desorption time: 11.7 min. Finally, the proposed method was successfully applied for the quantification of triazoles in river and agricultural water samples.