Evaluation of a new hypercrosslinked polymer as a sorbent for solid-phase extraction of polar compounds

A new hypercrosslinked polymer (HXLGp) with hydrophilic character due to the presence of hydroxyl moieties has been tested as a sorbent for the solid-phase extraction (SPE) of several polar compounds from water samples. This new sorbent enables the on-line extraction of 300 ml of sample with recoveries higher than 80% for polar compounds such as oxamyl, methomyl or desisopropylatrazine (DIA). The HXLGp has also been compared to other commercially available sorbents such as Oasis® HLB (hydrophilic macroporous), to hydrophobic hypercrosslinked resins and to a previously synthesized sorbent based on N-vinylimidazole-divinylbenzene. The results are consistently better with the new synthesized sorbent. The method was successfully applied to the on-line SPE-HPLC of tap and river water samples. The validation with river water samples provided good linearity range and detection limits between 0.03 for methomyl and 4-nitrophenol (4NP) to 0.2 μg l−1 for phenol (Ph).