Dynamic liquid phase nanoextraction coupled to GC/MS for rapid analysis of methoxyacetophenone and anisaldehye isomers in urine

Abstract

This study introduces a novel extraction technique in the nanoscale and challenges the limits of solvent extraction in the GC/MS using electronic ionization (EI) method for quantitative determination of six methoxyacetophenone (MAP) and anisaldehye (AAH) isomers in one drop of water and urine. This technique is termed as dynamic liquid phase nanoextraction (DLPNE). The optimum parameters for the DLPNE technique were: selection of solvent, toluene; sampling volume, 0.44 microL; dwell time, 2 s; number of sampling, 15; extraction time, 1.5 min; volume of extraction solvent, 60 nL; and no salt addition. The LODs for this technique were 5-20 ng/mL. The RSDs were in the range of 9.7-12.6% (n = 6). The linear dynamic range of the calibration curve of DLPNE is from 0.02 to 0.5 microg/mL with correlation coefficient (r(2)) >0.9705. The advantages of the DLPNE technique are rapidity, ease of operation, simple device, and extremely little solvent and sample consumption. This technique was also compared with the static liquid phase nanoextraction (SLPNE) while the SLPNE failed to detect any signal for the six isomers. We believe that this technique can be very useful for the detection of volatile organic compounds in environmental science from microscale of water or it can be applied to clinical or pharmaceutical application such as diagnosis of microamount of urine or blood samples by GC/MS.