Fabrication of amino- and hydroxyl dual-functionalized magnetic microporous organic network for extraction of zearalenone from traditional Chinese medicine prior to the HPLC determination

Abstract

Efficient enrichment of trace zearalenone (ZEN) from the complex traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) samples is quite difficult, but of great significance for TCM quality control. Herein, we reported a novel magnetic solid phase extraction (MSPE) strategy for ZEN enrichment using the amino- and hydroxyl dual-functionalized magnetic microporous organic network (Fe₃O₄@MON-NH₂-OH) as an advanced adsorbent combined with the high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) determination. Efficient extraction of ZEN was achieved via the possible hydrogen bonding, hydrophobic, and π-π interactions between Fe₃O₄@MON-NH₂-OH and ZEN. The adsorption capacity of Fe₃O₄@MON-NH₂-OH for ZEN was 215.0 mg g^-1 at the room temperature, which was much higher than most of the reported adsorbents. Under the optimal condition, the developed Fe₃O₄@MON-NH₂-OH-MSPE-HPLC method exhibited wide linear range (5-2500 μg L^-1), low limits of detection (1.4-35 μg L^-1), less adsorbent consumption (5 mg), and large enhancement factor (95) for ZEN. The proposed method was successfully applied to detect trace ZEN from 10 kinds of real TCM samples. Conclusively, this work demonstrates the Fe₃O₄@MON-NH₂-OH can effectively extract trace ZEN from the complex TCM matrices, which may open up a new way for the application of MONs in the enrichment and extraction of trace contaminants or active constituents from the complex TCM samples.

Keywords: Magnetic solid phase extraction; Microporous organic network; Sample pretreatment; Traditional Chinese medicine; Zearalenone.