Monolithic graphene fibers for solid-phase microextraction

Monolithic graphene fibers for solid-phase microextraction (SPME) were fabricated through a dimensionally confined hydrothermal strategy and their extraction performance was evaluated. For the fiber fabrication, a glass pipeline was innovatively used as a hydrothermal reactor instead of a Teflon-lined autoclave. Compared with conventional methods for SPME fibers, the proposed strategy can fabricate a uniform graphene fiber as long as several meters or more at a time. Coupled to capillary gas chromatography (GC), the monolithic graphene fibers in a direct-immersion (DI) mode achieved higher extraction efficiencies for aromatics than those for n-alkanes, especially for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), thanks to pi-pi stacking interaction and hydrophobic effect. Additionally, the fibers exhibited excellent durability and can be repetitively used more than 160 times without significant loss of extraction performance. As a result, an optimum extraction condition of 40 degrees C for 50 min with 20% NaCl (w/w) was finally used for SPME of PAHs in aqueous samples. For the determination of PAHs in water samples, the proposed DI-SPME-GC method exhibited linear range of 0.05-200 mu g/L, limits of detection CLOD) of 4.0-50 ng/L, relative standard deviation (RSD) less than 9.4% and 12.1% for one fiber and different fibers, respectively, and recoveries of 78.9-115.9%. The proposed method can be used for analysis of PAL-Is in environmental water samples. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.