Preparation of novel alumina nanowire solid-phase microextraction fiber coating for ultra-selective determination of volatile esters and alcohols from complicated food samples

• A novel SPME coating was prepared by a rapid anodization-chemical etching method.
• ANW SPME has high extraction capacity and selectivity to volatile ester and alcohol.
• The ANW SPME-GC/MS method was developed for the determination of ester and alcohol.
• The novel analytical method was successfully applied to the analysis of food samples.

A novel alumina nanowire (ANW) solid-phase microextraction (SPME) fiber coating was prepared by a simple and rapid anodization-chemical etching method for ultra-selective determination of volatile esters and alcohols from complicated food samples. Preparation conditions for ANW SPME fiber coating including corrosion solution concentration and corrosion time were optimized in detail for better surface morphology and higher surface area based on scanning electron microscope (SEM). Under the optimum conditions, homogeneous alumina nanowire structure of ANW SPME fiber coating was achieved with the average thickness of 20 μm around. Compared with most of commercial SPME fiber coatings, ANW SPME fiber coatings achieved the higher extraction capacity and special selectivity for volatile esters and alcohols. Finally, an efficient gas sampling technique based on ANW SPME fiber coating as the core was established and successfully applied for the ultra-selective determination of trace volatile esters and alcohols from complicated banana and fermented glutinous rice samples coupled with gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) detection. It was interesting that 25 esters and 2 alcohols among 30 banana volatile organic compounds (VOCs) identified and 4 esters and 7 alcohols among 13 identified VOCs of fermented glutinous rice were selectively sampled by ANW SPME fiber coatings. Furthermore, new analytical methods for the determination of some typical volatile esters and alcohols from banana and fermented glutinous rice samples at specific storage or brewing phases were developed and validated. Good recoveries for banana and fermented glutinous rice samples were achieved in range of 108–115% with relative standard deviations (RSDs) of 2.6–6.7% and 80.0–91.8% with RSDs of 0.3–1.3% (n = 3), respectively. This work proposed a novel and efficient gas sampling technique of ANW SPME which was quite suitable for ultra-selectively sampling trace volatile esters and alcohols from complicated food samples.