Fast Determination of Eleven Food Additives in River Water Using C18 Functionalized Magnetic Organic Polymer Nanocomposite Followed by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography

Abstract

A novel magnetic nanomaterial with Fe3O4 as the core, PS-DVB as the shell layer, and the surface modified with C18 (C18−PS−DVB−Fe3O4) had been synthesized by seeded emulsion polymerization. C18−PS−DVB−Fe3O4 retains the advantages of the chemical stability, large porosity, and uniform morphology of organic polymers and has the magnetic properties of Fe3O4. A simple, flexible, and efficient magnetic dispersive solid phase extraction (Mag-dSPE) method for the extraction of preservatives, sweeteners, and colorants in river water was established. C18−PS−DVB−Fe3O4 was used as an adsorbent for Mag-dSPE and was coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to detect 11 food additives: acesulfame, amaranth, benzoic acid, tartrazine, saccharin sodium, sorbic acid, dehydroacetic acid, sunset yellow, allura red, brilliant blue, and erythrosine. Under the optimum extraction conditions, combined with ChromCoreTMAQC18 (5 μm, 4.6 × 250 mm), 20 mmol/L ammonium acetate aqueous solution and methanol were used as mobile phases, and the detection wavelengths were 240 nm and 410 nm. The limits of detection (LODs) of 11 food additives were 0.6–3.1 μg/L with satisfactory recoveries ranging from 86.53% to 106.32%. And the material could be reused for five cycles without much sacrifice of extraction efficiency. The proposed method has been used to determine food additives in river water samples, and results demonstrate the applicability of the proposed C18−PS−DVB−Fe3O4 Mag-dSPE coupled with the HPLC method to environment monitoring analysis.

Keywords

• magnetic dispersive solid phase extraction
• food additives
• high-performance liquid chromatography
• magnetic nanomaterial