Graphene oxide/polydimethylsiloxane-coated stainless steel mesh for use in solid-phase extraction cartridges and extraction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

Abstract

The stainless steel mesh, in the form of the disk, was coated with graphene oxide and poly(dimethylsiloxane) (GO-PDMS) by sol-gel technique. The coated stainless steel meshes are loaded in the mini-column as solid-phase extraction cartridge for the fast isolation and preconcentration of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from real water samples. The extracted PAHs (naphthalene, acenaphthene, acenaphthylene, anthracene, benz[a]anthracene, fluorene, and pyrene) were quantified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The operation parameters affecting the extraction efficiency including sample volume, desorption conditions, and ionic strength were investigated. At optimized conditions, the linearity of this method is obtained from 0.001 to 20ngmL-1 with 0.2 to 1.0pgmL-1 limit of detection. For 5 replicates at 3 spiking levels (0.1, 1, and 10ngmL-1), the relative standard deviations between 4.0 and 6.3% were achieved. Theabsolute extraction recovery varied from 89.1 to 94.7%. The enrichment factors were in the range of 2227-2367. Themethod has been employed in the determinationof PAHs in the real water samples including well water, tap water, river water, and wastewater. Relative recoveries are between 95.2 and 100.9%. Graphical abstractSchematic representation of the SPE procedure using the self-assembly SPE cartridge.