A hollow fiber solid-phase microextraction method for pre-concentration of venlafaxine and o-desmethylvenlafaxine in biological matrices is described for the first time. The functionalized MWCNTs with an amino acid, glycine, were synthesized and held in the pore of a hollow fiber by sol-gel technique. In order to extract venlafaxine and o-desmethylvenlafaxine from real samples, the hollow fiber was immersed into the sample solution under a magnetic stirring for 20 min. The extracted venlafaxine and o-desmethylvenlafaxine from the fibers were then desorbed with methanol by sonication and analyzed using high-performance liquid chromatography. Important microextraction parameters including pH of donor phase, donor phase volume, stirring rate, extraction time, and desorption conditions such as the type and volume of solvents and desorption time were thoroughly investigated and optimized. The optimized technique provides good repeatability (RSD of the intraday precision 3.7 and 3.4, interday precision of 5.8 and 5.4 %), linearity of (0.1-300 and 0.2-360 ng mL(-1)), low LODs of (0.03 and 0.07 ng mL(-1)), and high enrichment factor of (164 and 176) for venlafaxine and o-desmethylvenlafaxine, respectively. The analytical performance of Gly-MWCNTs as a new SPME sorbent was compared with MWCNTs and carboxylic MWCNTs. The results indicate that Gly-MWCNTs are quite effective for extraction of venlafaxine and o-desmethylvenlafaxine. Feasibility of the method was evaluated by analyzing human urine and real water samples. The results obtained in this work show a promising, simple, selective, and sensitive sample preparation and determination method for biological and water samples.
Keywords: Functionalized multiwall carbon nanotubes; Glycine; Hollow fiber solid-phase microextraction; Human urine samples; O-desmethylvenlafaxine; Venlafaxine.