Graphene oxide composite microspheres as a novel dispersive solid-phase extraction adsorbent of bisphenols prior to their quantitation by HPLC–mass spectrometry

Abstract Novel graphene oxide on polystyrene microspheres were fabricated via layer-by-layer assembly and initially applied to extract four bisphenol endocrine disruptors (bisphenol A, bisphenol B, bisphenol AF, tetrabromobisphenol A) in various environmental water samples following high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry determination. The as-synthesized adsorbent was then applied for dispersive solid-phase extraction. The as-prepared GO@PS was characterized using scanning electron microscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Furthermore, the main parameters governing the extraction efficiency were optimized in detail, and under the optimized conditions, attractive results were obtained. The developed method exhibited high enrichment factors ranging from 73 (BPB) to103 (BPA), low detection limits (0.02-0.11 μg·L-1) and wide linear ranges (0.1-1000 μg·L-1) for enriching and detecting the four bisphenol endocrine disruptors. Meanwhile, acceptable results were obtained when the developed technique was used to determine four target pollutants in real water samples, with spiked recoveries in the range of 71.1%-104.8%. This indicated that GO@PS was a powerful material for the enrichment and determination of bisphenols in complex matrices.