Magnetic Solid Phase Extraction of Triazine Herbicides from Environmental Aquatic Media using Polyaniline/ Fe3O4 Nanocomposite

Polyaniline/Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles were synthesized and employed as a sorbent for the magnetic solid phase extraction (MSPE) of seven triazine herbicides from environmental water samples. The properties of the prepared magnetic sorbent were characterized using field emission-scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) methods. Effect of the different parameters influencing the MSPE efficiency, such as sample pH, sorbent amount, and extraction time were investigated and optimized. The amount of enrichment factors for triazines using proposed method were found in the range of 26-49. Calibration curves of triazines showed linearity in the range of 1 1000, 2-1000 and 5-1000 μg/L for analytes. In addition, the detection limits for the analytes were in the range of 0.2-0.9 μg/L. The values of relative standard deviation (RSD%) for n=5 at the concentration level of 10 μg/L were obtained lower than 3.1% for all analytes. Capability of polyaniline/Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles in extraction of triazines was compared with naked Fe3O4 and polyaniline. The proposed method was also successfully applied to the extraction of triazine herbicides from environmental samples and satisfactory relative recoveries were obtained.