Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Chromatographia (2019) 82:917–926 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10337-019-03725-w ORIGINAL Graphene Adsorbent‑Based Solid‑Phase Extraction for Afatoxins Clean‑Up in Food Samples Javad Feizy 1  · Moslem Jahani 2  · Adel Beigbabaei 2 Received: 18 November 2018 / Revised: 8 April 2019 / Accepted: 15 April 2019 / Published online: 24 April 2019 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019 Abstract In this research, graphene nanoparticles were used as an adsorbent for the extraction and pre-concentration of the afatoxins (AFs) in rice and wheat samples. The graphene was synthesized according to the Hummer’s method, packed in empty SPE cartridges and diferent parameters afecting the efciency of the process for the extraction of AFs were thoroughly investi- gated. The extracts were subsequently analyzed using high-performance liquid chromatography and fuorescence detection (HPLC–FLD). Under the optimized conditions, limits of detection of 0.63, 0.47, 0.62 and 0.83 ng g −1 and limits of quantifca- tion of 1.92, 2.65, 1.88 and 2.83 ng g −1 were obtained for AFs B 1 , B 2 , G 1 and G 2 , respectively. The accuracy was estimated by determination of the relative recoveries (RR%) and acceptable values obtained. The RR% values of 75.88–113.30 and 70.61–110.75 were obtained in cereal samples and at the spiked level of 2 and 5 ng g −1 , respectively. Within-laboratory relative standard deviations (%RSDs) for repeatability (n = 6) were in the range of 2.14–3.17. The proposed new method can be applied for the separation and pre-concentration of the mentioned AFs in food samples with satisfactory results. Graphical Abstract Keywords HPLC · AFB 1  · AFB 2  · AFG 1  · AFG 2  · Graphene * Javad Feizy feizy.j@gmail.com; j.feizy@rifst.ac.ir Extended author information available on the last page of the article