Facile synthesis of polyaniline-coated SiO2 nanofiber and its application in enrichment of fluoroquinolones from honey samples

• PANI/SiO2 was prepared by combining electrospinning with in-situ polymerization.
• The preparation of PANI/SiO2 can eliminate the aggregation of PANI.
• PANI/SiO2 was used as sorbent for in-syringe dispersive solid-phase extraction.
• PANI/SiO2 was applied for the extraction of fluoroquinolones from honey samples.
• The whole sample pretreatment process could be accomplished within 4 min.

In this study, polyaniline coated SiO2 nanofibers (PANI/SiO2) was prepared by combining electrospinning technique with in-situ polymerization. The proposed strategy for the preparation of PANI/SiO2 can eliminate the aggregation of PANI and the yield of PANI/SiO2 was high. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images showed that PANI nanoparticles were uniformly coated on the surface of SiO2 nanofibers. The as-prepared PANI/SiO2 nanofibers were then applied as the sorbent for in-syringe dispersive solid-phase extraction (dSPE) for the extraction of fluoroquinolones (FQs) from honey samples. The influence of SiO2 amount on the formation of PANI/SiO2 and several parameters that affect the extraction efficiency were investigated. Under optimized conditions, a rapid, simple and effective method for the determination of FQs in honey sample was developed by coupling with liquid chromatography-fluorescence detector (LC-FLD) analysis. Due to the fast extraction equilibrium, the whole sample pretreatment process could be accomplished within 4 min. The limits of detection (LODs) for the target FQs were found to be 0.1–1.3 ng/g. The recoveries in honey sample were in the range of 81.4–118.1% with the RSDs of 0.8–14.4% (intra-day) and 1.4–14.9% (inter-day). This study offers a new strategy for the preparation of functional SiO2 nanofibers using post-electrospinning modification by in-situ polymerization, which could be generally applied in the preparation of various separation materials with electrospun nanofibers.

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