In-situ formation of CO2-incorportaed solid sorbent for dispersive solid phase extraction of phenolic compounds from water and wastewater samples prior to gas chromatography-flame ionization detector

Background: Herein, a new extraction procedure based on in-situ formation of carbon dioxide-incorporated solid sorbent was introduced for dispersive solid phase extraction of phenolic compounds from aqueous samples. In this study, incorporation of carbon dioxide into the structure of a diamine led to the formation of a solid compound in the sample solution that adsorbed the analytes. Results: The sample solution was mixed with isophorone diamine and placed under carbon dioxide stream. By doing so, isophorone diamine reacted with carbon dioxide and produced a carbamic acid analogue. It was dispersed into the sample solution as tiny particles that adsorbed the analytes. The adsorbed analytes were eluted by a volatile organic solvent and concentrated more by the vaporization of the eluate. The extraction procedure was done at low temperature to limit the releasing carbon dioxide from the produced compound. To obtain the reliable results, the method was validated and the obtained limits of detection and quantification were in the ranges of 0.29-41 and 0.96-1.3 ng/mL, respectively. Acceptable relative standard deviation (<7.3%) and coefficient of determination (>0.994) values confirmed the method repeatability and linearity. High enrichment factors (410-435) and extraction recoveries (82-87%) were attained with the introduced method. Significance and novelty: In this work, a chemical reaction was done between isophorone diamine and carbon dioxide in solution. The produced product (sorbent) was insoluble in solution and dispersed in whole parts of the solution as tiny particles. A high contact area between the sorbent and analytes provided high extraction efficiency for the analytes. The method was successful utilized in determining target analytes in real samples and the matrix effect of the samples had no important effect on the obtained results.