Magnetic solid-phase extraction of phthalate esters (PAEs) in apparel textile by core–shell structured Fe3O4@silica@triblock-copolymer magnetic microspheres

• Core–shell structured Fe3O4@silica@triblock-copolymer microspheres was obtained.
• The microspheres own multiple characteristics of hydrophilicity and hydrophobic.
• The extraction parameters were systematically investigated.
• Under the optimized condition, the method showed good linearity and precision.
• The microspheres were applied as adsorbent for extraction of PAEs in textile.

In this paper, novel core–shell structured magnetic Fe3O4/silica nanocomposites with triblock-copolymer grafted on their surface (Fe3O4@SiO2@MDN) were successfully fabricated by combining a sol–gel method with a seeded aqueous-phase radical copolymerization approach. Owing to the excellent characteristics of the strong magnetic responsivity, outstanding hydrophilicity and abundant π-electron system, the obtained core–shell structured microspheres showed great potential as a magnetic solid phase extraction (MSPE) adsorbent. Several kinds of phthalate esters (PAEs) were selected as model analytes to systematically evaluate the applicability of adsorbents for extraction followed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) analyses. Various parameters, including adsorbents amounts, adsorption time, species of eluent, and desorption time were optimized. Under the optimized conditions, Validation experiments such as recovery, reproducibility, and limit of detection were carried on and showed satisfactory results. The analysis method showed excellent linearity with a wide range of 0.2–10 mg/kg (R2>0.9974) and low limits of detection (LOD) of 0.02–0.09 mg/kg (S/N=3). Ultimately, the novel magnetic adsorbents were successfully employed to detect the PAEs in apparel textile samples. And the results indicated that this novel approach brought forward in the present work offered an attractive alternative for rapid, efficient and sensitive MSPE for PAEs compounds.

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