Employ of magnetic polyaniline coated chitosan nanocomposite for extraction and determination of phthalate esters in diapers and wipes using gas chromatography

In the present study, an efficient method for the simultaneous extraction and determination of four types of trace phthalate esters (PAEs) in diapers and wipes samples using magnetic chitosan coated with polyaniline (Fe3O4@CHI@PANI) solid-phase extraction coupled with gas chromatography equipped with a flame ionization detector (GC-FID) was developed. For this purpose, magnetic chitosan coated with polyaniline (Fe3O4@CHI@PANI) synthesized, characterized by FT-IR, FESEM, TEM, VSM, TGA and used as a sorbent in extraction procedure. At first, the effective parameters such as the amount of sorbent, extraction solvent, time of extraction and desorption, aqueous solution pH, and salt addition were optimized. Following extraction for the adsorbent, under optimum extraction conditions, the analytes were quantified by GC-FID. Acceptable linearity ranges 0.001-2 μgmL−1 with correlation coefficients (R2) larger than 0.9886 was achieved for all four phthalate esters. Limits of detection (LOD) ranged from 0.0002 to 0.0005 μgmL−1 and precision of the method, expressed as the relative standard deviation (RSD%, n = 3), was checked at three levels obtaining good results (1.41-3.94%). Finally, the applicability of the method successfully investigated for phthalates in the diaper and wipe samples.