Jakavula, SilindokuhleMpayipheli, NeliswaNqombolo, AzileRen, JianweiNomngongo, Philiswa Nosizo2025-10-152025-10-152025-09Jakavula, S., Mpayipheli, N., Nqombolo, A. et al. Incorporating PET-MIL-101(Fe) within cellulose acetate membrane for thin film microextraction of neonicotinoid insecticides in water. Scientific Reports 15, 32779 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-18447-3.2045-2322 (online)10.1038/s41598-025-18447-3http://hdl.handle.net/2263/104706DATA AVAILABILITY : The datasets used and analyzed in this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.Herein, cellulose acetate membrane modified with polyethylene terephthalate derived MIL-101(Fe) (PET-MIL-101(Fe)) was used as an extraction phase for the direct immersion-thin film microextraction method (DI-TFME) of neonicotinoid insecticides in water samples. The quantitative analysis of clothianidin, imidacloprid, thiacloprid and thiamethoxam was carried out using high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC-DAD). The morphological and structural characteristics of the materials were studied using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), and energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDX). Under optimum conditions, acceptable analytical performance for the developed DI-TFME/HPLC-DAD method was attained. The linearity of the method ranged from 0.04 to 500 µg/L with R2 ranging from 0.9981 to 0.9989. The detection limits, quantification limits and relative standard deviation (%RSD) of the DI-TFME/HPLC-DAD method were in the range of 0.013–0.016 µg/L, 0.043–0.053 µg/L and 1.2–3.9%, respectively. The method was applied in the analysis of real water samples, and the spiking recoveries of the target analytes were 95.6–102%, 91.2–98.6% and 79.2‒98.7% for river water, effluent and influent samples, respectively, with %RSDs ranging from 1.8 to 4.8%. These findings demonstrated that the developed DI-TFME/HPLC-DAD method had high precision, accuracy, sensitivity and enrichment factor (73–88). The DI-TFME/HPLC-DAD method proved sustainable for the simultaneous quantification of trace neonicotinoid insecticides in real samples.en© The Author(s) 2025. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.Waste utilizationRecycled PETPET-MIL-101(Fe)Polymer membranesNeonicotinoid insecticidesEnergy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDX)X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD)Polyethylene terephthalate derived MIL-101(Fe) (PET-MIL-101(Fe))Transmission electron microscopy (TEM)High-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC-DAD)Direct immersion-thin film microextraction method (DI-TFME)Article