Use of TiO2 nanotube arrays as the adsorbents for preconcentration of triazine herbicides in environmental water samples prior to determination using high performance liquid chromatography

Triazine herbicides are effective herbicides, which are widely used all over the world, but their residues pose a great threat to the environment and human health. Thus, it is crucial to develop a rapid and sensitive method for monitoring the triazine concentrations in the environment. The present study establishes a simple, sensitive and reliable method for determination of four triazine herbicides including atrazine, prometryn, propazine and simazine in water samples. Ordered titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanotube arrays were prepared using an anodization method and were then used as the adsorbent in the development of a micro-solid phase extraction for the enrichment of triazine herbicides before analysis using high performance liquid chromatography. The experimental results demonstrated that TiO2 nanotube arrays showed good adsorption of triazine herbicides, and the proposed method had satisfactory sensitivity with limits of detection in the range of 0.19–0.50 μg L−1. The proposed method was validated using four real environmental water samples and spiked recoveries were in the range of 84.3–101.9%. All the results demonstrated that the proposed method was an effective analytical tool and would be a useful method for the determination of such pollutants.