Covalent organic frameworks as dispersive solid-phase extraction adsorbents for β-lactam detection in aquatic environments

Abstract

Currently, antibiotic residues in the environment pose a serious public health risk; therefore, new sensitive approaches for detecting the presence of antibiotics are urgently needed. Ionic-type covalent organic frameworks (TAPB-(TFIT)+Cl−-COFs) were designed and prepared in this work, and these imine-linked COFs were characterized by several techniques, proving of porous structure and rich of nitrogen. The materials were applied to the extraction of β-lactams from aqueous samples, and the important parameters of the adsorption–desorption conditions were optimized. A dispersive solid-phase extraction method coupled with ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (TAPB-(TFIT)+Cl−-COFs-d-SPE-UPLC-MS/MS) was proposed and utilized to determine the levels of 11 antibiotics in the β-lactams in the extracted samples. Good linearity (1.0–200.0 μg·L−1, r > 0.9999) was achieved together with limits of detection and quantification of 0.01–0.92 μg·L−1 and 0.05–2.78 μg·L−1, respectively; recoveries ranged from 75.57 to 114.20 %, conferring relative standard deviations < 8.99 % and negligible matrix effects (84.88–109.40 %). The synthesized TAPB-(TFIT)+Cl−-COFs were demonstrated to have good reusability and high stability. Furthermore, the proposed method was clearly shown to be sensitive and separable for the reliable simultaneous detection of 11 β-lactam residues in aquatic environments.