Fibrous boron nitride nanocomposite for magnetic solid phase extraction of ten pesticides prior to the quantitation by gas chromatography.

A fibrous magnetic boron nitride nanocomposite was synthesized and is shown to be a viable adsorbent for the magnetic solid phase extraction of pesticides prior to their quantitation by gas chromatography with electron capture detection. The optimum conditions were obtained by both single factor optimization and response surface analysis (Box-Behnken design). Under the optimized conditions, the response to the ten pesticides (dicofol, α-endosulfan, p,p'-DDE, nitrofen, β-endosulfan, p,p'-DDD, p,p'-DDT, bifenthrin, permethrin and fenvalerate) is linear in the 0.03-40 ng·mL concentration range with the coefficients of determination ranging from 0.9970 to 0.9992. The relative standard deviations at concentration levels of 0.5 ng·mL, 20 ng·mL and 40 ng·mL were below 8.7%. The recoveries of the analytes from spiked tea water and tea beverage samples varied between 84.5% and 122%, with relative standard deviations ranging from 4.8 to 12%. The limits of detection are between 0.01 and 0.05 ng·mL. The adsorbent can be reused over 50 times without significant loss of extraction efficiency. Graphical abstract A novel fibrous-shape magnetic boron nitride nanocomposite (FeO@f-BN) was used as the adsorbent for the magnetic solid phase extraction (MSPE) of ten pesticides from tea water and tea beverage samples prior to their determination by gas chromatography (GC).