Direct solid-support sample loading for fast cataluminescence determination of acetone in human plasma

In the current manuscript we describe the development of a novel cataluminescence (CTL) sensor coupled with ionic liquids (ILs)-based headspace solid-phase micro-extraction (HS-SPME) technologies for the quantification of human plasma acetone levels associated with diabetic disease ex vivo. The unique properties of ILs, such as their nonvolatile and nonflammable nature, coupled with their high thermal stability allow ILs to be conveniently adopted as pseudosolid carriers for direct loading of acetone into a CTL sensor without matrix interference. Acetone from diabetic patient plasma and plasma samples spiked with acetone along with methanol, ethanol, and formaldehyde was conveniently and rapidly extracted and enriched in 3 mu L of IL and then rapidly quantified by our CTL sensor. The presence of plasma alone or spiked plasma containing methanol, ethanol, or formaldehyde did not interfere with acetone measurements. HS-SPME-CTL provides higher enrichment efficiency than headspace single-drop microextraction-based CTL (HS-SDME-CTL) methods, possibly due to that the thin film formed in HS-SPME instead of the single IL drop in HS-SDME increases the exchange area for extracted acetone. The enrichment efficiency by HS-SPME-CTL was almost 80-fold higher than that with direct injection using the same volume of aqueous samples and more than 6-fold higher than that using HS-SDME-CTL. Considering that ILs can be easily prepared from inexpensive materials and tuned by the combination of different anions and cations for the extraction of specific analytes from various solvent media, this proposed technology raises an exciting possibility by employing HS-SPME-CTL for the fast determination of specific targets in many fields.