Abstract In this study, the chitosan grafted polyaniline (Ch-g-PANi) were synthesized and applied as a sorbent for preconcentration of phthalate esters (PAEs) in dispersive solid phase extraction (d-SPE). By coupling d-SPE with HPLC and response surface methodology (central composite design), a reliable, sensitive and cost-effective method for simultaneous determination of PAEs including dimethyl phthalate (DMP), di-n-butyl phthalate (DBP), and di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP) was developed. The morphology of sorbent had been studied by SEM and its chemical structure confirmed by FT-IR. Under optimum condition, good linearity was observed in the range of 5.0–5000.0 ngmL-1. The limits of detection (S/N= 3) and limits of quantification (S/N = 10) were in the range of 0.1-0.3 ng mL-1and 0.3–0.5 ngmL-1, respectively. The relative standard deviations (RSD%) were less than 8.8%. Finally, this procedure was employed for extraction of trace amounts of PAEs in milk samples, the relative recoveries ranged from 82 to 103 %.

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