Self-Assembling Bifunctional Hydrophilic Magnetic Nanomaterials for Highly Efficient Enrichment of Parabens in Beverages Sample

Preservatives affect human endocrine systems and pose a potential threat to the environment, so developing a fast, low-cost means to detect parabens is critical. In this work, a hydrophilic magnetic ball (Fe3O4@mSiO(2)@PDA-IL@C18) is prepared via functionalized position control strategy. The imidazole-based ionic liquid and mesoporous silica are outer bifunctional groups, which provide active sites for the extraction of preservatives by the pi-pi interaction. Fe3O4@mSiO(2)@PDA-IL@C18 was utilized to the selective enrichment of parabens with good linear range (0.05-300 ng/mL), excellent recovery (94%-105%) and precision (RSDs lower than 5.2%), and low detection limit (0.05 ng/mL). In the actual sample test, the prepared Fe3O4@mSiO(2)@PDA-IL@C18 could specifically detect parabens from green tea and cola samples. The results displayed that we provided an efficient and simple method for the detection of preservatives in food.