Polydopamine decorated 3D nickel foam for extraction of sixteen polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

• Foam metal was introduced into solid phase extraction.
• Polydopamine coated 3D nickel foam was prepared and applied as sorbent.
• The extraction procedure was quick and the extraction time was only 5 min.
• The proposed sorbent was compared with other dopamine-based sorbents reported in literature.

In this work, polydopamine coated 3D nickel foam (NF-PDA) was prepared and applied as sorbent for the solid phase extraction (SPE) of 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from water samples. NF-PDA were synthesized by situ oxidative self-polymerization procedure and characterized by using the techniques of scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectrum analysis (EDS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Its performance was evaluated by the SPE of 16 PAHs from water samples, followed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometrical (GC–MS) analysis. The effects of the main experimental parameters (i.e. sorbent amount, desorption solvent, extraction time, water sample volume, elution volume, elution time, ionic strength and samle solution pH.) that could affect the extraction efficiencies were investigated. The results demonstrated that the NF-PDA had an excellent adsorption capability for the compounds. The methodology was validated for river water and wastewater, obtaining recoveries ranging from 89.6 to 97.5% with relative standard deviation values lower than 7.3% and limits of detection in the range 2.3–16.5 ng/L.