Accordion-like Ti3C2Tx MXene nanosheets as a high-performance solid phase microextraction adsorbent for determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons using GC-MS

Two dimensional accordion-like Ti3C2Tx MXene, where T-x represents surface termination groups such as -OH, -O-, and -F, is synthesized by selective etching of aluminum layers from Ti3AlC2. This manuscript reports on the adsorption of organic molecules from head-space and aqueous environments containing Ti3C2Tx, a representative of the MXene family. Ti3C2Tx coated by gluing method on a stainless steel wire was successfully utilized as a highly sensitive and stable head-space solid-phase microextraction (SPME) fiber. A SPME method with the MXene as the adsorbent combined with gas chromatography with MS detector was used to determine the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in water samples. Low detection limits in the range of 0.2-5 ng L-1, wide linearity and good reproducibility (RSD = 4.6 to 7.4% for n = 6) under the optimized extraction conditions was achieved. Finally, the MXene coated fiber was successfully used for the determination of PAHs in real water samples. The relative recoveries for six PAHs are from 91.3-105.0%, which proved the applicability of the method. Also, melamine was selected as a polar analyte and it has been shown that Ti3C2Tx MXene has good capability in extraction of melamine (the extraction recovery for melamine = 80.1%) from aqueous media by dispersive micro solid-phase extraction.