Sustainable one-pot synthesized sulfonated carbon from Para rubber tree bark: An efficient adsorbent for dispersive solid-phase extraction of tetracyclines and chloramphenicol in environmental and food samples

Abstract

Antibiotic residues in food and the environment pose a serious public health hazard. This study investigated the novel application of sulfonated carbon, synthesized via a facile one-pot sulfuric acid procedure from para rubber tree bark agricultural waste, as a highly efficient natural adsorbent. The material was comprehensively characterized by FTIR, XPS, XRD, TEM, SEM, BET, and zeta potential and exhibited favorable properties for the dispersive solid-phase extraction (DSPE) of five antibiotics (tetracycline, oxytetracycline, chlortetracycline, doxycycline, and chloramphenicol). Under the synergistic combination of DSPE with HPLC-UV detection, our proposed method achieved excellent linearity (7.0–300 μg L⁻¹, R² more than 0.9893), significant enrichment factors (5.6–64.6), and low limits of detection (LODs: 5.0–7.0 μg L⁻¹) and quantitation (LOQs: 7.0–13.0 μg L⁻¹), with recoveries ranging from 70.0 % to 120.3 %. Our developed method successfully quantified target antibiotic residues in diverse matrices including water, soil, and milk. This research highlighted the potential of waste-derived sulfonated carbon as an eco-friendly and cost-effective alternative for robust monitoring of antibiotic pollutants in complex samples to promote environmental protection and food safety.