Efficient capture of carbamate and triazole pesticides in environmental waters by functional groups-rich monolithic fibers prior to chromatographic quantification

Abstract

Efficient capture of carbamate and triazole pesticides in environmental waters is challenging because of their low contents, high water-solubility and complex sample matrices. In the present study, according to the chemical features of carbamates and triazoles, a functional groups-rich monolithic adsorbent (FRMA) was fabricated and employed as the extraction phase of multiple fibers solid phase microextraction (MF-SPME) using 4-vinylphenylboronic acid and vinylimidazole as mixed functional monomers. Results well evidenced that multiple forces such as B-N coordination, H-bonding, π-π and hydrophobic interactions co-contributed the efficient enrichment of FRMA/MF-SPME towards studied pesticides (extraction efficiencies ranged from 76.8% to 91.7%). Under the optimized parameters, sensitive and reliable method for measurement of trace carbamate and triazole pesticides in a variety of water samples was developed by the combination of FRMA/MF-SPME with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) equipped with diode array detector (DAD). The limits of detection varied from 0.0049 μg/L to 0.015 μg/L, and the RSDs for precision were below 10%. The recoveries for different fortified contents (1.0 μg/L and 100 μg/L) were in the range of 82.0–119%, and the RSDs for repeatability varied from 2.1% to 9.2%. Compared with existing approaches, the established approach presents some attractive merits such as minimal labor required, good sensitivity, high cost-effectiveness and eco-friendliness. Thus, the introduced approach can serve as a promising alternative method for routine monitoring of carbamate and triazole pesticides in environmental waters.