Graphene grafted silica-coated Fe3O4 nanocomposite as absorbent for enrichment of carbamates from cucumbers and pears prior to HPLC

In this paper, a novel graphene (G) grafted silica-coated Fe3O4 nanocomposite was fabricated by the chemical bonding of G onto the surface of silica-coated Fe3O4 nanoparticles. Some carbamates (metolcarb, carbaryl, pirimicarb, and diethofencarb) in cucumber and pear samples were enriched by this nanocomposite prior to their determination by HPLC with UV detection. Experimental parameters that may affect the extraction efficiency were investigated. Under the optimum conditions, a linear response was achieved in the concentration range of 0.5-100.0 ng/g for metolcarb, carbaryl, and diethofencarb, and 1.0-100 ng/g for pirimicarb with the correlation coefficients (r) ranging from 0.9956 to 0.9984. The LOD (S/N = 3) of the method were found to be in the range from 0.08 to 0.2 ng/g. The RSDs were in the range from 2.4 to 5.8%. The results indicated that the G grafted silica-coated Fe3O4 nanocomposite was stable and efficient for magnetic SPE and has a great application potential for the preconcentration of other organic pollutants from real samples.