Magnetic polyamidoamine dendrimers for magnetic separation and sensitive determination of organochlorine pesticides from water samples by high-performance liquid chromatography

Abstract Organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) have received much attention due to their toxicity. Reliable methods to monitor their residues in the environment are needed. Here, magnetic polyamidoamine dendrimers were prepared by co-precipitation, Michael addition, and amidation. The magnetic polyamidoamine dendrimers demonstrated good adsorption ability for OCPs—this feature was utilized to construct a sensitive tool for monitoring OCPs in water samples. The proposed method provided remarkable linearity from 0.1 to 500 μg/L and satisfactory limits of detection from 0.012 to 0.029 μg/L. The spiked recoveries of the four target analytes were 91.8%−103.5% with relative standard deviations less than 4.5%. The magnetic materials had good reusability. The results indicated that the resulting method was an efficient, easy, rapid, economical, and eco-friendly tool for monitoring OCPs in aqueous samples.