Growth of cedar-like Au nanoparticles coating on an etched stainless steel wire and its application for selective solid-phase microextraction

• The growth of cedar-like AuNPs coating was achieved on an etched stainless steel substrate.
• The fiber exhibits high extraction capability and good selectivity for B[a]p, Phe, Dip and Nap.
• The novel fiber with unique structure can be fabricated in a highly reproducible manner.
• This fiber is stable enough to withstand at least 200 extraction and desorption replicates.
• The proposed method was suitable to target aromatic hydrocarbons in environmental water.

A novel cedar-like Au nanoparticles (AuNPs) coating was fabricated on an etched stainless steel (SS) wire by direct chemical deposition and used as an efficient and unbreakable solid phase microextraction (SPME) fiber. The etched SS wire offers a rough surface structure for subsequent growth of AuNPs in chloroauric acid solution. As a result, the uniform cedar-like AuNPs coating with larger surface area was tightly attached to the etched SS wire substrate. The AuNPs coated etched SS fiber (AuNPs/SS) was examined for SPME of ultraviolet (UV) filters, phthalate esters and aromatic hydrocarbons coupled to high-performance liquid chromatography with UV detection. The fabricated fiber exclusively exhibited excellent extraction efficiency and selectivity for some aromatic hydrocarbons. Influential parameters of extraction and desorption time, temperature, stirring rate and ionic strength were investigated and optimized. The limits of detection ranged from 0.008 μg L−1 to 0.037 μg L−1. The single fiber repeatability varied from 3.90% to 4.50% and the fiber-to-fiber reproducibility ranged from 5.15% to 6.87%. The recovery of aromatic hydrocarbons in real water samples spiked at 2.0 μg L−1 and 20 μg L−1 ranged from 94.38% to 106.2% with the relative standard deviations below 6.44%. Furthermore the growth of the cedar-like AuNPs coating can be performed in a highly reproducible manner. This fabricated fiber exhibits good stability and withstands at least 200 extraction and desorption replicates.

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