An amino-functionalized grooved nanofiber mat for solid-phase extraction of phenolic pollutants

An amino-functionalized grooved polyacrylonitrile nanofiber mat was modified by both functional groups and in terms of surface morphology. The mat is shown to represent a viable adsorbent for solid-phase extraction of six priority phenolic pollutants and three phenolic xenoestrogens (phenol, 3-methoxyphenol, 4-nitrophenol, 2,4-dichlorophenol, 2,4,6-trichlorophenol, pentachlorophenol, 4-tert-octylphenol, 4-nonylphenol and bisphenol A) from environmental water samples. Under optimized conditions, the analytes were completely extracted from 90 mL of water sample by using only 9 mg of the mat material. Following elution with an ammoniacal methanol-acetone mixture, the eluent was directly submitted to UPLC-MS/MS or HPLC with DAD detection. Satisfied linearity in range of 50 pg·mL −1 to 100 ng·mL −1 was achieved. The detection limits ranged from 4 to 60 pg·mL −1 which revealed the excellent sensitivity of the method in comparison to standardized and other techniques. The recoveries ranged from 82.4% to 111.4%, with the relative standard deviations of 4.0% to 11.4% (for n = 6). The method was applied to the determination of nine phenolic pollutants in water samples collected from sixteen inflow rivers and six Taihu Lake regions. Graphical abstract Amino-functionalized grooved nanofibers mat-based solid-phase extraction for simultaneous determination of nine phenolic pollutants in environmental water