Porous graphene-coated stainless-steel fiber for direct immersion solid-phase microextraction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

Abstract

Porous graphene (PG), a type of graphene-based material with some holes/pores within the atomic plane, has recently attracted great attention. In this study, PG was prepared by combustion method and used as a new coating on stainless-steel fibers for direct immersion solid-phase microextraction (SPME) of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Compared to polydimethylsiloxane-coated fiber, PG-coated SPME fiber showed higher enrichment factors (EFs), which increased with the number of aromatic rings. The excellent extraction ability was mainly due to the existence of nanopores. Moreover, PG also provided π–π stacking interaction and hydrophobic properties for better extraction efficiency of aromatic compounds. Additionally, PG-coated fibers exhibited good precision (<8%), wide linear ranges (0.002–10 μg L⁻¹), and low limits of detection (1–2 ng L⁻¹) for PAHs. The results verified that this novel PG coating was a promising sorbent for extraction and trace analysis of PAHs in environmental water samples.