A new polyethylene glycol fiber prepared by coating porous zinc electrodeposited onto silver for solid-phase microextraction of styrene

A new polyethylene glycol fiber was developed for solid-phase microextraction (SPME) of styrene by electrodepositing porous Zn film on Ag wire substrate followed by coating with polyethylene glycol sol–gel (Ag/Zn/PEG sol–gel fiber). The scanning electron micrographs of fibers surface revealed a highly porous structure. The extraction property of the developed fiber-to-styrene residue from polystyrene packaged food was investigated by headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) and analyzed with a gas chromatograph coupled with flame ionization detection (GC-FID). The new Ag/Zn/PEG sol–gel fiber is simple to prepare, low cost, robust, has high thermal stability and long lifetime, up to 359 extractions. Repeatability of one fiber (n = 6) was in the range of 4.7–7.5% and fiber-to-fiber reproducibility (n = 4) for five concentration values were in the range 3.4–10%. This Ag/Zn/PEG sol–gel fiber was compared to two commercial SPME fibers, 75 μm carboxen/polydimethylsiloxane (CAR/PDMS) and 100 μm polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Under their optimum conditions, Ag/Zn/PEG sol–gel fiber showed the highest sensitivity and the lowest detection limit at 0.28 ± 0.01 ng mL−1.