Hydrophobic polymer tethered magnetic zirconium-based metal-organic framework as advance and recyclable adsorbent for microwave-assisted extraction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from environmental water samples

Hydrophobic poly (glycidyl methacrylate) tethered magnetic amino-functional zirconium metal-organic framework (UiO-66-NH2) was fabricated for the first time for rapid microwave-assisted magnetic solid-phase extraction of trace polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from environmental water samples. UiO-66-NH2 endowed the nanocomposite with remarkable specific surface area (175.2 m2/g) and short diffusion route, while poly (glycidyl methacrylate) provided hydrophobic interaction towards hydrophobic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, both of which contributed to the satisfactory extraction performance. The successful preparation of the nanocomposite was confirmed by transmission electronic microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, N2 adsorption-desorption experiment, powder X-ray diffraction patterns, contact angle measurement and vibrating sample magnetometry. In addition, an optimized protocol for microwave-assisted magnetic solid-phase extraction was carried out, including adsorbent amount (20–160 mg), adsorption time (30–150 s), desorption time (10–80 s) and desorption solvents (methanol, acetonitrile, acetone and ethyl acetate). Under the most favorable conditions, the microwave-assisted method afforded magnetic solid-phase extraction with short extraction time (1 min), a wide linear response (1.56–200 μg/L), good linearity (R2 ≥ 97.83%), low limits of detection (0.04–4.68 μg/L) and good precision (RSD ≤ 6.39%) for six polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The proposed method was successfully applied in analysis of real water samples with mean recoveries in the range of 82.6–118.4% at three spiked levels and the relative standard deviations less than 10.7%. The results indicated that our developed method had great potential in enrichment and detection of trace polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in real aqueous samples.