A highly sensitive and selective method for determination of phenoxy carboxylic acids from environmental water samples by dispersive solid-phase extraction coupled with ultra high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.

A rapid and efficient method for extraction of 12 phenoxy carboxylic acids (PCAs) in environmental water samples was established based on metal-organic framework MIL-101 assisted dispersive solid phase extraction (DSPE). 12 PCAs were labeled by d0-10-methyl-2-(piperazin-1-ylsulfonyl)anthracen-9(10H)-one(d0-MASPz) and d3-10-methyl-2-(piperazin-1-ylsulfonyl)anthracen-9(10H)-one(d3-MASPz), allowing each analyte to have an isotope internal standard. A stable isotope-coded strategy for the detection of 12 PCAs was developed under optimized extraction conditions and UHPLC-MS/MS conditions. All PCAs analytes were in good linearity in the concentration range of 5-1000 ng/L, and the calibration function was verified by the Mandel fitting test with a 95% confidence level. The LODs and LOQs were estimated by the IUPAC's recommendations. The LODs ranged from 0.18 to 0.88 ng/L, and LOQs ranged from 0.59 to 2.90 ng/L. The intra-day and inter-day precision in three spiked levels (5, 50 and 100 ng/L) were in the range of (1.40 ± 0.14) %- (2.76 ± 0.12) % and (2.60 ± 0.26) %- (3.83 ± 0.32) %, respectively. The developed method has been successfully applied to the determination of PCAs in environmental water samples with recoveries ranging from 95.3% to 105.5%. All of the precision and recovery analyses were done in triplicate.