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.