Zirconium(IV) functionalized magnetic nanocomposites for extraction of organophosphorus pesticides from environmental water samples

• A simple way was proposed to prepare Zr(IV) based IMAC material EDTA@Zr(IV) NPs.
• EDTA@Zr(IV) NPs was synthesized by one-pot chemical co-precipitation method.
• Zr(IV) was utilized to capture OPPs based on its high affinity to phosphate moiety.
• Coupled with GC–MS, it was used to determine trace OPPs in real water samples.
• The NPs showed high selectivity and specificity to OPPs in real water samples.

The widespread use of organophosphate pesticides (OPPs) in agriculture leads to residue accumulation in the environment which is dangerous to human health and disrupts the ecological balance. In this work, one nanocomposite immobilized zirconium (Zr, IV) was prepared and used as the affinity probes to quickly and selectively extract organophosphorus pesticides (OPPs) from water samples. The Fe3O4-ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA)@Zr(IV) nanocomposites (NPs) were prepared by simply mixing Zr(IV) ions with Fe3O4-EDTA NPs synthesized by one-pot chemical co-precipitation method. The immobilized Zr(IV) ions were further utilized to capture OPPs based on their high affinity for the phosphate moiety in OPPs. Coupled with GC–MS, four OPPs were used as models to demonstrate the feasibility of this approach. Under the optimum conditions, the limits of detection for target OPPs were in the range of 0.10–10.30 ng mL−1 with relative standard deviations (RSDs) of 0.61–4.40% (n = 3), respectively. The linear ranges were over three orders of magnitudes (correlation coefficients, R2 > 0.9995). The Fe3O4-EDTA@Zr(IV) NPs were successfully applied to extract OPPs samples with recoveries of 86.95–112.60% and RSDs of 1.20–10.42% (n = 3) from two spiked real water. By the proposed method, the matrix interference could be effectively eliminated. We hope our finding can provide a promising alternative for the fast extraction of OPPs from complex real samples.