Room temperature in situ growth of fluorinated covalent organic framework on electrospun nanofibers for efficient detection of benzoylurea insecticide residue in water samples

Abstract

The accurate detection of benzoylurea insecticides (BUs) residues is vital for the environment and human health. In this work, a room-temperature synthesis strategy was developed to fabricate the covalent organic framework (COF)–polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofibers composite by an electrospinning technique. The COF was functionalized on PAN nanofibers via in situ polymerization of 1,3,5-tris(4-aminophenyl)triazine (TAPT) and 2,3,5,6-tetrafluoroterephthaldehyde (TFTA). The obtained TAPT-TFTA@PAN nanofibers showed a porous structure, high surface area, good crystallinity and excellent extraction efficiency to BUs. A sensitive method combining dispersive solid-phase extraction (DSPE) using TAPT-TFTA@PAN nanofibers as an adsorbent with liquid chromatography–ultraviolet detector was developed for trace analysis of four BUs in environment water samples. This method achieved a wide linear range of 0.5–200 ng·mL−1 for triflumuron and hexaflumuron, and of 0.5–150 ng·mL−1 for teflubenzuron and fluazuron. The limits of detection (S/N = 3) for four BUs ranged from 0.11 to 0.42 ng·mL−1. The accuracy of the proposed method was validated by measuring trace BUs in the spiked water samples with recoveries in the range of 98.3 %∼125.3 %. The results demonstrated that the TAPT-TFTA@PAN nanofibers have great potential as an extractant for effective enrichment of benzoylurea insecticide from complex water samples.