Preparation of highly fluorinated and boron-rich adsorbent for magnetic solid-phase extraction of fluoroquinolones in water and milk samples

Abstract

Effective extraction is an indispensable procedure for the sensitive analysis of fluoroquinolones (FQs) in complex samples. According to the molecular properties of FQs, a new highly fluorinated and boron-rich adsorbent (FBA) was synthesized and employed as the extraction phase of magnetic solid-phase extraction (MSPE). Results revealed that the prepared FBA displayed satisfactory extraction capability for FQs through fluorophilic and B–N coordination interactions. Besides, the synthesized FBA also exhibited strong magnetic responsiveness and good life-span. Under the most favorable conditions, the FBA/MSPE was combined with high-performance liquid chromatography with diode array detection (HPLC-DAD) to sensitively quantify trace levels of FQs in environmental water and milk samples. The developed approach showed good linearity within the studied concentration range, satisfactory precision and low limits of detection (0.0049–0.016 μg/L for water sample and 0.010–0.046 μg/kg for milk sample). In the analysis of target FQs in real samples, the recoveries of different fortified concentrations were in the ranges of 80.1–120% and 78.9–119% for water and milk samples, respectively. The relative standard deviations for reproducibility were all below 11%. The results well evidence that the introduced FBA/MSPE is a promising extraction technology for FQs, and the established FBA/MSPE-HPLC/DAD approach is suitable to measure low concentrations of FQs in water and milk samples.