Magnetic solid phase extraction of heterocyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from environmental water samples with multiwalled carbon nanotube modified magnetic polyamido-amine dendrimers prior to gas chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometer

•The magnetic materials MNPs@PAMAM-Gn@MWCNTs were firstly designed and synthetized.•MNPs@PAMAM-Gn@MWCNTs showed excellent adsorption properties to heterocyclic PAHs.•Sensitive method was developed based on MNPs@PAMAM-Gn@MWCNTs and GC–MS/MS.•Established method exhibited high sensitivity with LODs of 2.2 × 10−4–1.8 × 10−3 μgL−1. Present study described a sensitive and efficient method for determination of heterocyclic aromatic hydrocarbons using multiwalled carbon nanotubes modified magnetic polyamido-amine dendrimers (MNPs@PAMAM-Gn@MWCNTs) as adsorbent for magnetic solid-phase extraction (MSPE) coupled with gas chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometer (GC–MS/MS). Some pivotal parameters including PAMAM generation, adsorbent dosage, adsorption time, elution time and volume, pH and humic acid concentration were investigated to achieve the best adsorption efficiencies. Under the optimal conditions, 7-methylquinoline, dibenzothiophene and carbazole had good linearity in the concentration range of 0.005–20 μg L − 1, 9-methylcarbazole, 4-methyldibenzothiophene and 4,6-dimethyl dibenzothiophene had good linearity in the concentration range of 0.001–20 μg L − 1. All the correlation coefficients were higher than 0.996. The detection limits of the targets were in the range of 2.2 × 10−4–1.8 × 10−3 μg L − 1 with precisions less than 8.28% (n = 6). The enrichment factors were in the range of 141–147. The spiked recoveries were in the range of 87.0%-115.1% (n = 3). These results indicated that the method could be a reliable alternative tool for monitoring trace heterocyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in environmental water samples.