Paper-based polymeric ionic liquid for thin film micro extraction of sulfonamides in environmental water samples prior to HPLC-DAD analysis

Abstract Paper-based polymeric ionic liquid (p-Poly-(MMA-IL)) was successfully developed by grafting the polymeric ionic liquid on the surface of commercial filter paper by using dipping method, presenting a new cost-effective film. The newly developed p-Poly-(MMA-IL) was then applied as a paper-based thin film microextraction (p-TFME) to extract four representative sulfonamides (SAs) drugs, which were sulfadiazine, sulfachloropyridazine, sulfamethoxazole, and sulfadimethoxine in environmental water samples. Besides, p-Poly-(MMA-IL) was successfully characterised by FTIR, FESEM, and XRD techniques and underwent significant parameters optimisation, which affected the extraction efficiency. Under optimal conditions, the proposed method (p-Poly-(MMA-IL)-TFME) was evaluated and applied to analyse SAs in environmental water samples by using a high-performance liquid chromatography-diode array detector (HPLC-DAD). The validation method showed that a good linearity (0.50 µg L-1 –500 µg L-1) was noted (R2 > 0.999, n = 3). Detection and quantification limits were within 0.14 µg L-1 – 0.52 µg L-1 and 0.41 – 1.57 µg L-1, respectively, the preconcentraction factors were > 14.95, and the matrix effect was less than 2.64%, an acceptable percentage for real samples analysis. The extraction recoveries of environmental water samples were ranged from 90.4% to 109.9% with a relative standard deviation (RSD) of less than 9.8%. The newly developed paper-based polymeric ionic liquid (p-Poly-(MMA-IL) for analysis of SAs under the p-TFME procedure was successfully achieved with limited sample volume and organic solvent, fast extraction, and practicable in the daily analysis.