Introduction of coiled solid phase microextraction fiber coated by mesoporous silica/cetyltrimethylammonium bromide for ultra-trace environmental analysis

Abstract

In this study, a tiny coiled cupper wire as a novel solid phase microextraction (SPME) fiber was coated with mesoporous silica/cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (MCM-41/CTAB) as an adsorbent by electrochemically assisted self-assembly method and used for the preconcentration of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) as model analytes prior to chromatographic determination. Deposition of MCM-41/CTAB on the coiled SPME (C-SPME) fiber resulted in easily controlled and reproducible SPME coatings. Non-calcined MCM-41/CTAB on C-SPME plays a key role in the adsorption of PAHs. Under the optimized experimental conditions, low detection limits (36-1220pgL^-1), and wide linear dynamic ranges (R²>0.98) were achieved in the range of 0.25-25,000, 0.12-15,000, 0.56-32,000, 4.1-100,000ngL^-1 for phenanthrene, anthracene, fluoranthene and pyrene respectively. The reusability of proposed fiber as well as relative standard deviations for repetitive determination of the target analytes was evaluated. The proposed method was successfully applied for determination of PAHs in several real samples.

Keywords: Coiled SPME; Electrochemically assisted self-assembly; MCM-41/CTAB; Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.