An in situ electrochemical fabrication of layer by layer graphenized graphite polyaniline as a stable solid-phase microextraction fiber coating for trace environmental analysis

A layer by layer graphenized graphite/polyaniline coating was fabricated on commercial pencil lead substrate by an in situ facile, fast and efficient electrochemical procedure. The electrodeposited polyaniline film on surface-confined graphene structure can integrate the advantages of the both layers and was used for solid-phase microextraction. Effective experimental parameters in electrochemical production of graphene nanosheets and electropolymerization of aniline were optimized. The prepared fiber was used for extraction and determination of four polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons: phenanthrene, anthracene, fluoranthene and pyrene in aqueous samples by high performance liquid chromatography. The fiber coating was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. Under the optimized conditions, the coating provided good linear ranges (0.10-25 mu g/L for phenanthrene, 0.05-12.5 mu g/L for anthracene, 0.825-99 mu g/L for fluoranthene and 0.625-75 mu g/L for pyrene (R-2 = 0.999)) and limits of detection, 0.016 to 0.275 mu g/L. The produced coating has several attractive features such as high stability, low cost and long operation time.