Electrospun UiO-66/polyacrylonitrile nanofibers as efficient sorbent for pipette tip solid phase extraction of phytohormones in vegetable samples

In this work, metal-organic framework particles incorporated fibers (UiO-66/PAN nanofibers) were used as adsorbent in pipette tip solid phase extraction (PT-SPE) for the first time. The UiO-66/PAN nanofibers were fabricated by a facile electrospinning method and characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and nitrogen adsorption-desorption experiments. The UiO-66/PAN nanofibers were applied to assemble a novel PT-SPE cartridge for determination of four phytohormones followed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Several experimental parameters such as kinds of UiO-66/PAN nanofibers, the amount of UiO-66/PAN nanofibers, the effect of solution pH, ionic strength and desorption conditions were intensively investigated. Under the optimal conditions, the linear ranges of the phytohormones were in the range of 0.06-60 ng/mL with correlation coefficients above 0.992. The limits of detection were between 0.01 ng/mL to 0.02 ng/mL. The interday and intraday precision (RSD) for three replicate extractions of the four phytohormones (15 ng/mL for each) was in the range of 1.5-5.6%. The established method was successfully applied for the determination of phytohormones in watermelon and mung bean sprouts samples. The results showed that the electrostatic interaction between the positively charged UiO-66 and anionic forms of phytohormones played an important role in the extraction of the phytohormones.