Facile fabrication and application of poly(ortho-phenetidine) nanocomposite coating for solid-phase microextraction of carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from wastewaters

The waters and wastewaters around industrial areas are heavily polluted and have adverse effects on the ecosystems. The present study is mainly focused on the electropolymerization of ortho-phenetidine and co-deposited on a steel wire along with graphene oxide nanosheets as a novel coating for solid-phase microextraction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from aqueous media prior to gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. PAHs are composed of multiple aromatic rings which have been linked to skin, lung, bladder and liver. Cancer is a primary human health risk of exposure to PAHs. To obtain a firm and stable coating, several empirical factors relevant to the electrochemical process were investigated. Characterization for chemical structure and surface morphology of the synthesized nanocomposite was conducted with FT-IR spectroscopy and FE-SEM, respectively. XRD and TGA were applied to study the other properties of the nanocomposite. Some essential items involved in microextraction process were also checked in details. Under optimized case, validation parameters were assessed. Wide linearity (0.005-5.0 ng mL(-1)), low detection limits (0.4-4.3 pg mL(-1)) and good repeatability (3.6-9.5%) and reproducibility (7.6-11.8%) were achieved. The developed method was utilized to analyze contaminated real samples such as wastewater samples from coal processing industries and agricultural water samples collected from the vicinity of the industry in different seasons and high recoveries were obtained, finally.

Automated summary

This study mainly focuses on the pollution of waters and wastewaters around industrial areas. A novel coating for solid-phase microextraction of PAHs has been successfully developed by electropolymerizing ortho-phenetidine and graphene oxide nanosheets on a steel wire. The method showed high recoveries when applied to analyze contaminated real samples.