The paper diaper is a hygiene product that is in direct contact with the skin for a long period of time each day for several years from the newborn period early after birth until about the age of 4 years, and it is necessary to study the safety of chemical substances contained in the product. Phthalates are the most widely used plasticizers in the plastics industry. They are usually added into polymers to improve their moldability and flexibility. Phthalate esters, are of potential concern because of reproductive and other toxic effects reported for phthalate esters in animal models, therefore, consideration of existence of phthalates in baby diaper is an important issue [1,2]. In the present research, chitosan(CHI) functionalized Fe3O4 magnetic microspheres coated with polyaniline (PANI) were successfully synthesized and applied as an effective sorbent for preconcentration of typical phthalate esters (PAEs). Firstly, the nanoscale magnetic chitosan (Fe3O4@CHI) were synthesized by a co-precipitation method at ambient atmosphere, without the protection of inert gases and then, aniline was polymerized on the magnetic core. In the next step, this magnetic sorbent was applied for extraction of phthalate ester through dispersive solid phase extraction. Since phthalate esters are aromatic compounds, π–π interaction between polyaniline shell and aromatic ring of compounds leads to their extraction. Dimethyl phthalate (DMP), di-n-butyl phthalate (DBP), Butyl benzyl phthalate (BBP) and di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) were selected as the model analytes to verify the extraction ability of Fe3O4@CHI@PANI. The dominant parameters affecting enrichment efficiency such as kind of extraction solvent, amount of sorbent, time of extraction and desorption, volume of extraction solvent, salt addition effect were investigated and optimized. Under optimal condition, the proposed method was evaluated, and successfully applied to the measurement of the levels of phthalates in the topsheet of usual baby diapers in Iran. The results demonstrated the method based on Fe3O4@CHI@PANI had acceptable analytical figures of merit, suitable linear range 5.0–2000.0 ngmL-1 , LODs, 0.1–0.2 ng mL-1 and RSD 7.1%.

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