Facile and efficient poly(ethylene terephthalate) fibers-in-tube for online solid-phase microextraction towards polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

Poly(ethylene terephthalate) (polyester) fibers as solid-phase microextraction (SPME) adsorbent were directly filled in a poly(ether ether ketone) (PEEK) tube, for online analysis of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in environmental water samples, coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography. The facile, economic, and environmental polyester fibers-in-tube SPME device exhibited high extraction efficiency, good selectivity for PAHs, and satisfactory durability. Under optimum conditions, the polyester fibers provided satisfactory enhancement factors in the range of 307-1646, and low detection limits ranging from 0.01 to 0.03 mu g L-1. The linearity was in the range of 0.03-80 mu g L-1 with correlation coefficients (r) ranging from 0.9978 to 0.9997. Limit of quantification was defined as a concentration of the analytes with a ten-time signal-to-noise ratio (S/N = 10) and was in the range of 0.03-0.1 mu g L-1. The intra-day and inter-day precisions for quantitative analysis were investigated and the relative standard deviation (RSD) was lower than 5.8 and 6.9 %, respectively. Extraction repeatability was also investigated and its RSD was in the range of 3.8-7.8 %. Finally, the fiber-in-tube SPME device was successfully applied to analyze PAHs in water samples.