Fabrication of graphene/Fe3O4@polythiophene nanocomposite and its application in the magnetic solid-phase extraction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from environmental water samples

• G/Fe3O4@polythiophene as a novel sorbent for MSPE of PAHs.
• Polythiopheneas an efficient modifier of G/Fe3O4.
• G sheets can act as a “support” for the growth of Fe3O4 nanoparticles.
• G sheets can act as a “spacer” for the inhibition of NPs aggregation.

Polythiophene (PT) was used as a surface modifier of graphene/Fe3O4 (G/Fe3O4) composite to increase merit of it, and also overcome some limitations and disadvantages of using G/Fe3O4 alone as solid phase extraction (SPE) sorbent. An in-situ chemical polymerization method was employed to prepare G/Fe3O4@PT nanocomposites. Application of this newly designed material in the magnetic SPE (MSPE) of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), as model analytes, in the environmental water samples was investigated. The characterization of the hybrid material was performed using transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray analysis, Fourier transform-infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy and vibrating sample magnetometry. Seven important parameters, affecting the extraction efficiency of PAHs, including: amount of adsorbent, adsorption and desorption times, type and volume of the eluent solvent, initial sample volume and salt content of the sample were evaluated. The optimum extraction conditions were obtained as: 4 min for extraction time, 20 mg for sorbent amount, 100 mL for initial sample volume, toluene as desorption solvent, 0.6 mL for desorption solvent volume, 6 min for desorption time and 30% (w/v) for NaCl concentration. Good performance data were obtained at the optimized conditions. Detection limits were in the range of 0.009–0.020 μg L−1 in the real matrix. The calibration curves were linear over the concentration ranges from 0.03 to 80 μg L−1 with correlation coefficients (R2) between 0.995 and 0.998 for all the analytes. Relative standard deviations were ranged from 4.3 to 6.3%. Appropriate recovery values, in the range of 83–107%, were also obtained for the real sample analysis.

Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide