Polymeric ionic liquid bucky gels as sorbent coatings for solid-phase microextraction

• Polymeric ionic liquid bucky gel sorbent coatings were developed for SPME.
• Method involved on-fiber co-polymerization by thermal free-radical polymerization.
• Sorbent coatings were used for the extraction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
• Higher partition coefficients resulted from increased loading of carbon nanotubes.
• The sorbent coatings were validated by studying recovery from river and tap water.

Novel cross-linked polymeric ionic liquid (PIL) bucky gels were formed by free-radical polymerization of polymerizable ionic liquids gelled with multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) and used as sorbent coatings for solid-phase microextraction (SPME). The combination of PIL with MWCNTs significantly enhanced the π–π interaction between the sorbent coatings and the aromatic analytes. Compared to the neat PIL-based sorbent coating, the PIL bucky gel sorbent coatings demonstrated higher extraction efficiency for the extraction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). A partitioning extraction mechanism was observed for the PIL/MWCNT-based sorbent coatings indicating that the addition of MWCNTs did not seem to affect the extraction mechanism of the sorbent coating. The analyte-to-coating partition coefficients (log Kfs) were estimated and the limits of detection (LOD) for selected PIL bucky gel sorbent coating were determined to be in the range of 1–2.5 ng L−1. Recovery studies were also performed for PAHs in river and tap water to validate the applicability of the developed method.