Porous aromatic framework coated stir bar sorptive extraction coupled with high performance liquid chromatography for the analysis of triazine herbicides in maize samples

Triazine rings-containing porous aromatic framework (PAF-56p) was synthesized through a Friedel-Crafts reaction and investigated as a coating for the stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) of interest triazines. The triazine rings and conjugated groups in PAF-56p could interact with triazine rings-containing herbicides by hydrophobic and π-π interactions. The PAF-56p coated stir bar showed superior extraction performance over commercial PDMS and EG coated stir bar in terms of extraction efficiency and dynamics towards six triazine herbicides with different polarity. Based on it, a method by combining PAF-56p-SBSE with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)-diode array detector (DAD) was established for the analysis of six target triazine herbicides, including simazine, atrazine, ametryn, prometon, prometryne and prebane. The affecting factors of SBSE were investigated by single-factor test. Under the optimized conditions, the limits of detection of the proposed method were ranged from 0.037 to 0.089 μg/L with the linear range within 0.1–200 μg/L for six triazine herbicides. High enrichment factors (EFs) of 61.8–89.5-fold (theoretical EF is 100-fold) were achieved. The developed PAF-56p-SBSE-HPLC-DAD method was successfully applied for trace triazine herbicides analysis in maize and maize leaf samples, with recoveries in the range of 86.5–115% and 85.1–114% for spiked maize and maize leaf samples, respectively.