A new magnetic nanodiamond/graphene oxide hybrid (Fe3O4@ND@GO) material for pre-concentration and sensitive determination of sildenafil in alleged herbal aphrodisiacs by HPLC-DAD system

A sensitive analytical methodology was investigated to concentrate and determine of sildenafil citrate (SLC) present at trace level in herbal supplementary products. The proposed method is based on simple and sensitive pre-concentration of SLC by using magnetic solid phase extraction with new developed magnetic nanodiamond/graphene oxide hybrid (Fe3O4@ND@GO) material as a sorbent. Experimental variables affecting the extraction efficiency of SLC like; pH, sample volume, eluent type and volume, extraction time and amount of adsorbent were studied and optimized in detail. Determination of sildenafil citrate after magnetic solid phase extraction (MSPE) was carried out by HPLC-DAD system. The morphology, composition, and properties of the synthesized hybrid material was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FT-IR), Raman spectrometry (Raman), X-ray diffraction spectrometry (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), mapping photographs, zeta potential analyzer, and BET surface area analysis. Under optimized conditions, linear range was ranged from 5.00 to 250.00 ng mL−1 with R2 of 0.9952. The limit of detection (LOD) was 1.49 ng mL−1 and the recoveries at two spiked levels were ranged from 94.0 to 104.1% with the relative standard deviation (RSD) < 7.1% (n = 5). The enhancement factor (EF) was 86.9. The results show that the combination MSPE with HPLC-DAD is a suitable and sensitive method for the determination of SLC in real samples.