Evaluation of metal-organic framework 5 as a new SPE material for the determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in environmental waters

Metal-organic frameworks, a new class of materials with high surface area and great porosity, have been widely applied in gas sorption. It is generally known that metal-organic framework 5 cannot be applied in aqueous phase since it is water sensitive. However, this work reveals that the derived material of metal-organic framework 5 is a good SPE sorbent that can be applied to aqueous phases. Metal-organic framework 5 was prepared and used as a SPE sorbent for the determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in environmental matrices coupling with HPLC. The water treatment induced changes in the properties were investigated in detail. Even though metal-organic framework 5 is conversed to a second phase after water treatment, it still shows high extraction ability. Under the optimized experimental conditions, good sensitivity levels were achieved with low LODs ranging from 0.4 to 4.0 ng L −1 and a linearity of 0.004–20 μg L −1 ( R 2 > 0.996) for the investigated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The method has been validated in the analysis of real water samples with recoveries in the range of 80.2–120.2% and RSDs in the range of 0.5–11.7%.