Phytic acid-stabilized super-amphiphilic Fe 3 O 4 -graphene oxide for extraction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from vegetable oils

Abstract Phytic acid-stabilized Fe 3 O 4 -graphene oxide (GOPA@Fe 3 O 4 ) was assembled by microwave-enhanced hydrothermal synthesis and super-amphipathicity was demonstrated by measurement of dynamic oil and water contact angles. GOPA@Fe 3 O 4 was used as a sorbent for enrichment of eight polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from vegetable oils by magnetic solid-phase extraction (MSPE). The extraction-desorption factors were systematically investigated and, under optimum conditions, the super-amphiphilic sorbent achieved wide linear ranges (0.2–200 ng g −1 ), satisfactory precision (3.44–6.64% for intra-day and 5.39–8.41% for inter-day) and low limits of detection (LODs, 0.06–0.15 ng g −1 ) for PAHs. Excellent recoveries (85.6–102.3%) for spiked PAHs were obtained with genuine vegetable oil samples. These results indicate that MSPE using GOPA@Fe 3 O 4 as the sorbent, coupled with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), is an efficient and simple method for the detection of low concentrations of PAHs in vegetable oils.