Simultaneous determination of four sedative-hypnotics in human urine based on dendritic structured magnetic nanomaterials

A magnetic solid-phase extraction technique based on magnetic dendritic structured nanoparticles (Fe₃O₄@SiO₂-NH₂-G5) as adsorbent coupled with ultra-high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) has been developed to detect diazepam, midazolam, zolpidem, and zaleplon in human urine. With Fe₃O₄@SiO₂-NH₂ as the central core, dendrimer (G5) grafted alternately with cyanuric chloride and imidazole were bonded to the surface of the core to synthesize Fe₃O₄@SiO₂-NH₂-G5. The morphology and structure of the magnetic materials were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), and dynamic light scattering (DLS). The key parameters affecting the extraction efficiency were optimized. A satisfactory performance was obtained under the optimum extraction conditions. The proposed method was validated, and the limits of detection of zaleplon, diazepam, zolpidem, and midazolam were 0.05, 0.05, 0.02, and 0.02 ng mL^?1, respectively. The linear correlation coefficients r of the four analytes were > 0.996, the intra-day precision was between 2.4 % and 9.4 % with the recoveries between 88.3 % and 104.8 %, and the inter-day precision ranged from 3.9 % to 15.2 % with the recovery in the range of 94.1 %?108.3 %. The magnetic dendritic structure nanomaterial Fe₃O₄@SiO₂-NH₂-G5 was successfully used to extract sedative-hypnotic drugs from human urine samples. The Fe₃O₄@SiO₂-NH₂-G5-based magnetic solid-phase extraction method eliminates centrifugation and filtration steps as in conventional extraction. Only one step of vortex dispersion extraction could achieve the separation and purification of the target compounds. The proposed method was simple, rapid, environment-friendly, and suitable for the analysis of sedative-hypnotic drugs in human urine.