Liquid chromatographic determination of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in environmental river water samples

Contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have attracted significant interest from researchers, policymakers, and water treatment facilities. This is because PFAS are highly persistent in the environment and tend to be bio-accumulative thus causing adverse effects on terrestrial and aquatic life. Therefore, there is a need for simpler and fast methods for the determination of PFAS in water sources. This work aims at the application of dispersive magnetic solid-phase extraction (DMSPE) for the enrichment of PFAS in various surface water samples. Magnetic Fe₃O₄@MIL-101 (Cr) was used as an adsorbent in MSPE. Fe₃O₄@MIL-101(Cr) was used for the first time for the preconcentration and extraction of PFAS in various river water samples. The concentrations of target analytes in water samples were determined using high performance liquid chromatography-diode array detector and ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry analysis. The combination of optimized DMSPE with HPLC-DAD and UHPLC-MS/MS provided wide linear range (1–5000 ng/L and 0.05–2000 ng/L, low limits of detection (0.3–0.66 ng/L and 0.011–0.04 ng/L) and limits of quantification (1.0–2.2 ng/L and 0.04–0.12 ng/L). Moreover, acceptable intraday and interday precision based on the relative standard deviation (RSD) lower than 5% were obtained. The developed method showed remarkable practicability for the analysis of ultra-trace PFAS in water samples.