Preparation of hydrophilic C18 material and its application for solid phase extraction of phenols in water

Abstract

A C18 monolithic material with a hydrophilic character was obtained by copolymerizing stearyl methacrylate (SMA) and a hydrophilic monomer poly (ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate (PEGMEA) with porogen of 1-propanol/1,4-butanediol, and the resulting material was used for solid phase extraction (SPE) of phenols in water sample. Several parameters, including the proportion of the porogen, the pH value, the eluent species and the eluent volume during the extraction were investigated. Under the optimized experimental conditions, the linear calibration curves of five phenols were obtained in the ranges of 0.5-10 mg/L, the limits of detection (LODs) ranged from 0.16-0.47 mg/L. The new hydrophilic C18 material was successfully applied to analyze real environmental water samples with spiked recoveries in the range of 64.33%- 92.14% with relative standard deviations (RSDs) of 4.2%-6.4% (n = 3). The new hydrophilic material indicates great reliability, and it also presented an excellent extraction efficiency for the trace polar phenols in environmental water samples.