Magnetic solid-phase extraction based on Fe3O4/graphene oxide nanoparticles for the determination of malachite green and crystal violet in environmental water samples by HPLC

This work describes a magnetic Fe3O4/graphene oxide (GO)-based solid-phase extraction (MSPE) technique for high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) detection of malachite green (MG) and crystal violet (CV) in environmental water samples. Fe3O4/ GO magnetic nanoparticles were synthesised by a chemical co-precipitation method and characterised by scanning electron micrograph, transmission electron microscope, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and surface area analyser. The prepared Fe3O4/GO magnetic nanoparticles were used as the adsorbents of MSPE for MG and CV. By coupling with HPLC, a sensitive and cost-effective method for simultaneous determination of MG and CV was developed. The important parameters including the amount of Fe3O4/GO, pH of the sample solution, extraction time, salt effect, the type and volume of desorption solvent were investigated in detail. Under optimised conditions, the calibration curves were linear in the concentration range of 0.5-200 g L-1, and the limits of detection were 0.091 and 0.12 g L-1 for MG and CV, respectively. Finally, the established MSPE-HPLC method was successfully applied to determine MG and CV in environmental water samples with the recoveries ranging from 91.5% to116.7%.