Dispersive solid-phase extraction based on MoS2/carbon dot composite combined with HPLC to determine brominated flame retardants in water

The method based on the dispersive solid-phase extraction (DSPE) by novel molybdenum disulfide modified with carbon dot (MoS2/CD) composite combined with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was developed for the determination of three brominated flame retardants (BFRs), including tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA), tetrabromobisphenol A bisallylether (TBBPA-BAE), and tetrabromobisphenol A bis(2,3-dibromopropyl ether) (TBBPA-BDBPE). Owing to the stacked planar structure and large surface area of MoS2, a large number of CDs can be easily loaded on the surface of MoS2. Benefiting from good dispersing capability of MoS2, similar density with analytes, and hydrogen bonds between CDs and the target analytes, the CDs on the surface of MoS2 as sorbent for the DSPE procedure exhibited good extraction performance. Under optimal conditions, application of the developed method to analyze BFRs from real water samples resulted in good recovery values ranging from 80 to 91% with relative standard deviation (RSD) values lower than 6.5%. Limits of detection (LODs) were in the range of 0.01–0.06 μg/L. The result above showed that the method has potential for the extraction and detection of trace-level BFRs from real water sample.