Phenyltrichlorosilane-functionalized magnesium oxide microspheres: Preparation, characterization and application for the selective extraction of dioxin-like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in soils with matrix solid-phase dispersion

Abstract Magnesium oxide microspheres functionalized with phenyltrichlorosilane (PTS-MgO) were synthesized by surface modification through silanization reaction, which was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetry analysis (TGA) and N 2 adsorption-desorption. The result indicated that PTS-MgO not only possessed the ability of enhancing the retention with PAHs, but also weakening the interference from chlorinated compounds. As a sorbent for the matrix solid-phase dispersion (MSPD) extraction, PTS-MgO was used to selectively extract seven dioxin-like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (DL-PAHs) from soil samples. Various parameters affecting the recoveries of seven DL-PAHs were investigated and optimized, such as sorbent/sample mass ratio, grinding time, rinsing and eluting conditions. Under the optimized conditions, the developed method combining MSPD with HPLC-FLD exhibited good sensitivity (0.02–0.12 ng g −1 detection of limits) and linearity (linear correlation coefficient greater than 0.9997). Satisfactory recoveries with DL-PAHs spiked at two levels (10 and 80 ng g −1 ) were obtained in the range of 72.2–113.1% with RSD  −1 dry weight (dw). The total toxic equivalency quotients (TEQ) of seven DL-PAHs varied from 9.93 to 143.94 ng TEQ/g dw.