Sustainable polypyrrole-based magnetic-microextraction of phthalates from jellies and apple-based beverages prior to tandem mass spectrometry analysis

•Polypyrrole-coated Fe3O4 m-NPs were prepared and characterised in the laboratory.•Fe3O4@PPy m-NPs were applied for the microextraction of PAEs from food and beverages.•The determination of target analytes was carried out by UHPLC-QqQ-MS/MS.•Recovery and LOQs were in the ranges 70-114% and 0.147-0.416 µg/L, respectively.•DAP and BBP were found in some of the real samples evaluated. Synthesised polypyrrole-coated Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles have been successfully characterised and applied as sorbent for the magnetic-micro-dispersive solid-phase extraction of eleven phthalic acid esters from jelly and apple-based beverage matrices widely consumed by the population and, especially, by children. Sorbent was synthesised through chemical coprecipitation and subsequently characterised by different techniques. The influence of several parameters on the extraction efficiency was exhaustively evaluated using a step-by-step strategy. The separation and quantification of the selected phthalates were performed by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry. The validation of the methodology was carried out for jellies and apple-based beverages, employing dihexyl phthalate-3,4,5,6-d4 as the surrogate standard. Relative recovery values were in the range 70–114% for both matrices and relative standard deviations below 20% were obtained. The limits of quantification of the method were found in the range 0.147–0.416 µg/L. Feasibility of the developed methodology was proved by the analysis of commercialised jelly and apple-based beverage products.