Electrospun PVC/EVA/CS/Str nanofibers: an efficient sorbent for extraction of trace level of Atrazine and Ametryn in food samples

An electrospun composite of polyvinyl chloride/ethylene–vinyl acetate/chitosan/starch (PVC/EVA/CS/Str) was synthesized and used as a novel sorbent for thin-film micro-solid-phase extraction (TFME) of atrazine (ATZ) and ametryn (AMT) prior to corona discharge ion mobility spectrometry (CD-IMS) analysis. The fabricated sorbent was characterized using scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. Based on the investigations, thanks to the presence of CS/Str, the synthesized composite nanofiber exhibited high porosity, large surface area and acceptable reusability. Also, the sorbent provided various interactions with the intended analytes (hydrogen bonding, hydrophobic contacts and π-π stacking interactions), resulting in the improvement of extraction efficiency. Effective factors on adsorption and desorption steps were optimized by using both one at time method and design-expert. Under the optimum conditions, the linear range was 8.0–300.0 ng mL −1 with coefficient of determination ( r 2 ) ≥ 0.9821. Limits of detection (LOD) based on S/N = 3 were 2.5 ng mL −1 and 2.3 ng mL −1 for ATZ and AMT, respectively. The relative standard deviations were in range of 4.8–7.0%. Finally, the efficiency of the TFME-CD-IMS method was evaluated for the determination of ATZ and AMT in tea, milk, farm water and vegetable samples with good recoveries (88.6 to 98.1%).