Sea-urchin-like covalent organic framework as solid-phase microextraction fiber coating for sensitive detection of trace pyrethroid insecticides in water

Abstract

Pyrethroid insecticides residues in water pose a critical threat to the environment from widespread production and overuse. Therefore, it is of major relevance to develop a sensitive and efficient method to detect pyrethroid insecticides in water. In this paper, a covalent organic framework (COF) with NHCO as the structural unit was synthesized using a simple condensation reaction of TTL (NH2) and TDBA (COOH). Various characterization results and density functional theory (DFT) calculations demonstrated that multiple interactions synergistically promoted the adsorption of pyrethroid insecticides on COFTDBA-TTL. Based on the excellent extraction capability of COFTDBA-TTL, efficient detection of 11 pyrethroid insecticides in water was achieved using COFTDBA-TTL-coated SPME fiber and gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (GC–MS). The results showed that the extraction enhancement factors (EFs) of pyrethroid insecticides were as high as 2584–7199, and the extraction efficiencies were 3.28–446 times higher than that of commercial fiber, which reflected its high adsorption property. Meanwhile, the limits of detection (LODs) of the COFTDBA-TTL coated fiber were as low as 0.170–1.68 ng/L under the optimal conditions, and the recoveries of 11 pyrethroid insecticides in the actual water samples were 88.5–108 %. In conclusion, the SPME-GC–MS method based on COFTDBA-TTL coated fiber was simple, rapid, and efficient, and should have a promising application in trace detection of pyrethroid insecticides in the environment.