Magnetic polyimide nanocomposite for analysis of parabens in cooking wine by magnetic solid-phase extraction coupled with gas chromatography – Mass spectrometry

•Novel magnetic Fe3O4/PI nanocomposite was prepared by phase inversion method.•The synthesis is facile, mild, requires no tedious steps and is at room temperature.•The Fe3O4/PI was successfully applied for MSPE of parabens from cooking wine.•A sensitive, accurate, and robust method was established for analysis of parabens.•The work provides effective strategy to prepare organic polymer magnetic adsorbent. A magnetic polyimide (PI) nanocomposite has been synthesized by phase inversion of PI and simultaneous encapsulation of Fe3O4 nanoparticles. The Fe3O4/PI nanocomposite was characterized by a variety of characterization techniques, including infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms, and vibrating sample magnetometry. The results showed that the prepared nanocomposite had a homogeneous structure, adequate specific surface area (76.1 m2/g) and high saturation magnetization (42.9 emu/g). Using parabens as model analytes, the performance of the Fe3O4/PI nanocomposite as an adsorbent for magnetic solid-phase extraction (MSPE) was evaluated. The extracted parabens were desorbed and determined by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS). The parameters affecting the extraction and desorption efficiency of parabens were optimized. Under the optimal conditions, the developed MSPE/GC–MS method was successfully applied to the determination of parabens in cooking wine. The MSPE/GC–MS method exhibited broad linearity (0.2–100 µg/L), low detection limits (0.04–0.05 µg/L), and satisfactory extraction recoveries (79.2 %–113.3 %) with relative standard deviations (RSDs) ranging from 0.7 % to 10.4 %. For real cooking wine samples, the spiked recoveries ranged from 91.7 % to 118.7 % with RSDs of 1.0 %–11.2 %. The results demonstrated that the Fe3O4/PI nanocomposite was an effective adsorbent, and this work provides a novel reference for the easy preparation of magnetic adsorbent materials.