Polyaniline/cyclodextrin composite coated stir bar sorptive extraction combined with high performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet detection for the analysis of trace polychlorinated biphenyls in environmental waters

• PANI/α-CD composite coated stir bar was prepared for analyzing PCBs in waters.
• It presented high extraction efficiency and fast desorption kinetics for PCBs.
• It exhibited faster extraction kinetics (50 min) than PDMS-SBSE (14 h) for PCBs.
• PANI/α-CD-SBSE-HPLC-UV was successfully used for analyzing PCBs in waters.

A novel polyaniline/α-cyclodextrin (PANI/α-CD) composite coated stir bar was prepared by sol–gel process for the analysis of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in this work. The preparation reproducibility of the PANI/α-CD-coated stir bar was good, with relative standard deviations (RSDs) ranging from 2.3% to 3.7% (n=7) and 2.0% to 3.8% (n=7) for bar to bar and batch to batch, respectively. Based on it, a novel method of PANI/α-CD-coated stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) followed by high performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet (HPLC-UV) detection was developed for the determination of trace PCBs in environmental waters. To obtain the best extraction performance for target PCBs, several parameters affecting SBSE, such as extraction time, stirring rate, and ionic strength were investigated. Under optimal experimental conditions, the limits of detection (LODs) of the proposed method for seven PCBs were in the range of 0.048–0.22 μg/L, and the RSDs were 5.3–9.8% (n=7, c=1 μg/L). Enrichment factors (EFs) ranging from 39.8 to 68.4-fold (theoretical EF, 83.3-fold) for target analytes were achieved. The proposed method was successfully applied for the determination of seven target PCBs in Yangtze River water and East Lake water, and the recoveries were in the range of 73.0–120% for the spiked East Lake water samples and 82.7–121% for the spiked Yangtze River water samples, respectively.

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