LAUSR

Abstract The endocrine disruptor compounds (EDC) are inevitable hazardous pollutants usually found in the discharged wastewater effluents, polluting the natural water bodies. This can be rationalised by the ineffective analytical methods that fail to quantify EDC in the treated wastewaters, forestalling the advancement of wastewater treatment processes that could completely mineralise the EDC. Therefore, a novel polypropylene membrane protected micro-solid-phase extraction (µ-SPE) device was developed using MXene encapsulated sorbent in enhancing the analysis of mixed EDC, namely, triclosan, triclocarban, 2-phenylphenol, bisphenol A and 4-tert-octylphenol, via a high-performance liquid chromatography-diode array detector approach. The green adsorption–desorption of EDC from polypropylene membrane protected µ-SPE device was optimised at sorbent loading of 2 mg, extraction time of 30 min, sodium chloride of 15% (w/v), medium pH of 8, a sample volume of 10 mL, desorption solvent of isopropanol, desorption time of 3 min and desorption solvent volume of merely 150 µL. Under the optimum condition, the proposed method showed a good EDC detection limit ranging from 0.37 to 0.58 µg L−1 with acceptable relative recoveries between 81.0% and 105.5%. Moreover, the calculated enrichment factors also confirmed the EDC selectivity by polypropylene membrane protected µ-SPE device followed triclosan > 4-tert-octylphenol > bisphenol A > triclocarban > 2-phenylphenol. Finally, the polypropylene membrane protected µ-SPE device was assessed using real water, and wastewater samples and the EDC of triclosan and 4-tert-octylphenol were detected in the municipal wastewater and lake water, respectively.