New Grafted Nanosilica-Based Sorbent for Needle Trap Extraction of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons from Water Samples Followed by GC/MS

Abstract

In this work, the preparation of a new grafted nanosilica-based sorbent was extensively investigated. An inexpensive modifier, cis-9-octadecenoic acid (oleic acid) was selected to be grafted on the surface of the nanosilica particles as the support. The grafting process was accurately confirmed by Fourier transform infra-red spectrometry (FT-IR). Applicability of the prepared sorbent was thoroughly examined by needle trap extraction (NTE) method. The grafted sorbent was dispersed in the appropriate solvent and carefully packed inside a steel needle. Feasibility of the method was completely examined using polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), as model compounds. For extraction of analytes from aqueous samples, the prepared needle trap device (NTD) was placed in the headspace of the sample and another needle was also inserted into the sample solution to purge the circulating headspace into the sample. For increasing the extraction efficiency, influencing parameters including extraction time and temperature, flow rate of analyte through the needle trap, the ionic strength, desorption temperature, and time were optimized. The limit of detection (LOD) and relative standard deviation (RSD) values of the method under optimized conditions were 2–5 ng L−1 and 1.1–4.8%, respectively. The RSD% for fluorene was somewhat higher and a value of 16.8% at 40 ng L−1 was achieved. Finally the developed method was applied to the analysis of tap water and Zayandeh-roud river samples and the relative recovery (RR %) values were found to be in the range of 77–109%, under the optimized conditions.