Determination of trace hydroxyl polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in urine using graphene oxide incorporated monolith solid-phase extraction coupled with LC-MS/MS.

Abstract

The biomonitoring of hydroxy polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in urine, as a direct way to access multiple exposures to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, has raised great concerns due to their increasing hazardous health effects on humans. Solid-phase extraction is an effective and useful technique to preconcentrate trace analytes from biological samples. Here, we report a novel solid-phase extraction method using a graphene oxide incorporated monolithic syringe for the determination of six hydroxy polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in urine coupled with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. The effect of graphene oxide amount, washing solvent, eluting solvent, and its volume on the extraction performance were investigated. The fabricated monoliths gave higher adsorption efficiency and capacity than the neat polymer monolith and commercial C18 sorbent. Under the optimum conditions, the developed method provided the detection limits (S/N = 3) of 0.02-0.1ng/mL and the linear ranges of 0.1-1500ng/mL for six analytes in urine sample. The recoveries at three spiked levels ranged from 77.5 to 97.1%. Besides, the intra column-to-column (n = 3) and inter batch-to-batch (n = 3) precisions were ≤ 9.8%. The developed method was successfully applied for the determination of hydroxy polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in urine samples of coke oven workers.