Monodisperse cobalt(II) based metal-organic coordination polymer beads as a sorbent for solid-phase extraction of chlorophenoxy acid herbicides prior to their quantitation by HPLC.

Metal-organic coordination polymer beads (MOCBs) are described for use as a sorbent for solid-phase extraction of chlorophenoxy herbides. By applying regulation of Co(II) ions, micro-sized monodisperse MOCBs were obtained through the microwave heating. The MOCBs-based method displays excellent extraction efficiency towards chlorophenoxy herbicides, specifically of 2-chlorophenoxyacetic acid, 4-chlorophenoxyacetic acid, 4-chloromethylphenoxyacetic acid, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 2-(2,4-dichlorophenoxy)propionic acid. Following extraction, the herbicides were eluted with 8% formic acid in methanol and quantified by HPLC. The method, when applied to analyze spiked cereals, exhibits a wide linear range (from 0.6 to 1000 ng g-1) and low limits of quantification (ranging from 0.10 to 0.25 ng g-1). For a single column, the inter-day and intra-day precisions, expressed as the relative standard deviation are in the range of 2.5-6.8%. The batch-to-batch reproducibility (for n = 3) is <4.6%. For spiked cereal samples, relative recoveries are very good (90.3-102.3%, for n = 4). The extraction efficiency of MOCBs remains unchanged after reusing for 40 times. Graphical abstractSchematic presentation of Co(II)-doped metal-organic coordination polymer beads (Co(II)@MOCB) using for solid-phase extraction (SPE).