MXene and covalent organic framework heterostructure for efficient extraction of endocrine disrupting chemicals in...

Establishing highly sensitive analytical methods to monitor endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) is essential to ensure food safety and human health. Herein, we report a nanoarchitectonics approach to fabricate a MXene and COF heterostructure (Ti₃C₂T_X/TAPT-TFTA) via in situ growth of a β-ketoenamine-linked COF on the Ti₃C₂T_X MXene. The Ti₃C₂T_X/TAPT-TFTA exhibits remarkable extraction capacity for EDCs. The extraction mechanism was systematically investigated through experiments and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Thus, an analytical method of EDCs employing Ti₃C₂T_X/TAPT-TFTA as dispersive solid-phase adsorbent was established, coupled with HPLC-PDA. The method achieved detection limits of 0.003-0.006 μg·mL^-1 with a linear range of 0.020-1.00 μg·mL^-1, while recoveries of 79.4-109.9 % and the relative standard deviations of 0.1-6.1 %. These results validate the proposed method as a reliable and effective approach for the sensitive determination of EDCs in complex food matrices, such as beef, chicken, and pork samples.