Alien species water hyacinth realizes waste into treasure: The preparation of biomass sorbent to determine benzoylurea insecticides in tea products

A fast and effective analytical method with biomass solid-phase microextraction sorbent combined with a high-performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet detector was proposed for the determination of benzoylurea (BU) insecticides in tea products. The novel sorbent was prepared by activating and then carbonizing water hyacinth with a fast growth rate and low application value as raw material and showed a high specific surface area and multiple interactions with analytes, such as electrostatic action, hydrogen bonding, and π-π conjugation. After optimizing the three most important extraction parameters (pH [X 1 ], sample loading rate [X 2 ], and solution volume [X 3 ]) by Box-Behnken design, the as-established analytical method showed good extraction performance: excellent recovery (80.13%–106.66%) and wide linear range (1–400 µg/L) with a determination coefficient of 0.9992–0.9999, a low limit of detection of 0.02–0.1 µg/L and the satisfactory practical application results in tea products. All these indicate that the water hyacinth-derived material has the potential as a solid-phase extraction sorbent for the detection and removal of BU insecticides from tea products, and at the same time, it can also achieve the effect of rational use of biological resources, maintaining ecological balance, turning waste into treasure, and achieving industrial production.