Porous polyimide particle-coated adsorptive microextraction bar combined with thermal desorption-gas chromatography for rapid determination of parabens in condiments

Abstract

Bar adsorptive microextraction using polyimide (PI) particles as the extraction phase followed by thermal desorption and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (BAμE/TD-GC-MS) was developed to detect parabens in condiments, such as soy sauce, vinegar, and cooking wine. The PI particles were prepared by pneumatic spray combined with the immersion-precipitation phase transformation method. The prepared particles have highly porous surfaces, on which the 10–60 nm open nanopores are closely packed. Particles between 250–500 μm were then sieved out and used as extraction phase for BAμE. In contrast to the smooth and dense surface of the conventional PI phase transformation bar, the macroscopic rough surface of the PI particle bar and its microscopic porous particle surfaces provided larger extraction interfaces and more surface adsorption sites, both of which enhanced the extraction mass flux. With an extraction time of 2 min, the absolute recoveries of parabens by the PI particle bar were 1.9˜2.7 times those obtained by the conventional PI phase transformation bar. The intrabatch and interbatch precisions of the PI particle bars were less than 4.6% and 7.5%, respectively, and the PI particle bar exhibited a long lifetime of more than 50 extraction/desorption cycles. To realize rapid determination of parabens, the extraction time was fixed at 2 min. The analytical performance for standard water samples showed wide linearity (0.14–50 μg/L) with good correlation coefficients (r > 0.9980), good precision (RSD < 5.6%), appropriate detection limits (0.005−0.008 μg/L), and high enrichment factors (305–626). For the analysis of parabens in diluted condiments, the relative recoveries were between 86.1% and 109.0% with RSDs ranging from 0.1%–8.7%.