Biocompatible phosphatidylcholine bilayer coated on magnetic nanoparticles and their application in the extraction of several polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from environmental water and milk samples

In this work, phosphatidylcholine (PC) was coated on magnetic nanoparticles to form lipid bilayer as solid-phase extraction (SPE) sorbents for the enrichment of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from environmental water and milk samples. The lipid bilayer was coated on Fe3O4 nanoparticles using a modified dry lipid film hydration method. The resulted Fe3O4/PC could be readily isolated from solution with a magnet, and exhibited excellent adsorption performance to organic pollutants. Only 0.1 g of sorbents was enough to extract PAHs from 500 mL aqueous solution, and 6 mL of acetonitrile was required to desorb them. The method was fast and relied on 10 min extraction time and 5 min magnetic separation. The proposed method was successfully applied to determine PAHs in some environmental water and milk samples. The detection limit was in the range of 0.2–0.6 ng L−1. The recoveries of the spiked water samples ranged from 89% to 115% with relative standard deviations (RSD) varying from 1% to 8%. For spiked milk samples, RSD was satisfactory (1–9%), but the recoveries were relatively low (42–62%). We show the potentials of Fe3O4/PC sorbents in environmental water and biological sample analyses.

► The Fe3O4/PC nanoparticles were developed as SPE sorbents to extract PAHs.
► Magnetic separation of the sorbents met the requirement of rapid analysis.
► Recoveries of analytes were satisfactory in relatively high concentration of NOM.
► The magnetic SPE methods showed high sensitivity and precision.