Hypercrosslinked β-cyclodextrin polymer for the dispersive solid-phase extraction of organic pollutants from sea water and wastewater

This work explores the application of a hypercrosslinked β-cyclodextrin based polymer (called as "nanosponge", NS), as sorbent for the dispersive solid-phase extraction of a group of 48 organic pollutants from sea and wastewater. Extraction parameters such as type and volume of extraction solvent, amount of NS, adsorption and desorption time were optimized and applied to the extraction of thirteen polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, fourteen polychlorinated biphenyls, eleven organochlorine pesticides, two organophosphorus esters, seven UV filters and one antibacterial agent from both types of water. The extracts were analysed by gas chromatography coupled with a single quadrupole mass spectrometer allowing the determination of the 48 analytes in a 32 min chromatographic run. Under optimal conditions, the method showed good linearity, with R² > 0.99 for most of the analytes in both matrices. The limits of quantification were in the range 8 ng/L - 2 μg/L for sea water and 11 ng/L - 1.4 μg/L for wastewater. Excellent results were also obtained in terms of recovery for the majority of analytes, reporting an average value of 85 % and 88 % and an average RSD of 5 and 6 %, for sea water and wastewater, respectively. To evaluate the applicability and sustainability of the proposed method, it was subjected to Blue Applicability Grade Index (BAGI) metric and to Sample Preparation Metric of Sustainability (SPMS) achieving a total score of 67.5 and 7.05, respectively.