Development of a maleic acid-based material to selectively solid-phase extract basic compounds from environmental samples

This study presents a novel mixed-mode weak cation-exchange (WCX) material. This material was prepared by means of the functionalization of a mesoporous divinylbenzene (DVB) resin with maleic acid (maleic acid-DVB), which yielded a high carboxylic moiety content resulting in WCX interactions as well as suitable specific surface area for reversed-phase interactions. After the optimization of the solid-phase extraction (SPE) protocol to enhance the selectivity of the sorbent, this material was evaluated as a novel WCX sorbent in the SPE of a group of drugs from environmental water samples. The method is based on SPE followed by liquid chromatography (LC) coupled to high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) with an Orbitrap analyzer, and was validated and applied for the determination of basic drugs in river, effluent and influent wastewater samples. Maleic acid-DVB sorbent yielded suitable recovery rates (57% to 89%) and an acceptable matrix effect ( < 32%) thanks to the effective washing step included when these environmental waters were loaded through the novel resin. The method was applied to different environmental water samples and some basic drugs were suitably quantified in these environmental samples. (c) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ )

Automated summary

This study introduces a novel mixed-mode weak cation-exchange (WCX) material prepared by functionalizing a mesoporous divinylbenzene (DVB) resin with maleic acid. The material showed good recovery rates and low matrix effects in the solid-phase extraction (SPE) of basic drugs from environmental water samples. The optimized protocol coupled with high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) proved effective in quantifying basic drugs in different environmental water samples.