Facile preparation of a polydopamine-based monolith for multiple monolithic fiber solid-phase microextraction of triazine herbicides in environmental water samples

A new multiple monolithic fiber solid-phase microextraction using a polydopamine-based monolith as the extraction medium is proposed. The monolith was synthesized by facile in situ copolymerization of N-methacryldopamine and dual cross-linkers (divinylbenzene/ethylenedimethacrylate) in the presence of N, N-dimethylformamide. The effect of the contents of N-methacryldopamine and porogen in the polymerization mixture on the extraction performance was investigated thoroughly. A series of characterization studies was performed to validate the structure and properties of the monolith. The prepared multiple monolithic fibers were used for the extraction of triazine herbicides in environmental water samples. After the optimization of the extraction parameters, a convenient, sensitive, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly method for the determination of trace triazine herbicides in water samples was developed by coupling multiple monolithic fibers solid-phase microextraction with high-performance liquid chromatography and diode array detection. The results indicated that the limits of detection and quantification for the target compounds were 0.031-0.14 and 0.10-0.45 mu g/L, respectively. Good precision and reproducibility were obtained with the relative standard deviations below 10%. The developed method was applied to the analysis of the triazine herbicides in different water samples (lake, river, and farmland waters). The recoveries of the method were in the range between 79.6 and 117%.