In situ growth of hierarchical porous covalent organic framework coating for enhanced solid-phase microextraction of phenolic compounds

Abstract

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs), when utilized as solid-phase microextraction (SPME) coating materials, exhibit remarkable abilities to concentrate phenols by thousands-fold owing to their vast surface area and exceptional stability. However, the prevalent micropores inherent in COFs can impede rapid mass transfer of target molecules, prolonging SPME extraction times. To addresses this limitation, this work introduces a novel approach by integrating hierarchical porous structures into COFs, leveraging polystyrene microspheres as hard templates during the in situ growth process of the SPME coating. Due to the presence of a hierarchical porous structure derived from the template, the resulting hierarchical porous TpBD coating, termed HP-TpBD, demonstrated enhanced extraction efficiency, accelerated extraction kinetics, and notably shortened extraction times for phenolic compounds. Coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, a highly sensitive method featuring a low limit of detection (0.20–0.28 ng L^-1), a broad linear range (1.0∼1.0 × 10⁴ ng L^-1), and excellent precision (RSD < 8.5 %) was established. This methodology enables accurate quantitative analysis of phenols in water and soil samples. This work provides valuable insights into developing COF-based SPME coatings for the efficient extraction of volatile contaminants, paving the way for more efficient and sensitive analytical procedures.