Development of nitrogen-enriched carbonaceous material coated titania nanotubes array as a fiber coating for solid-phase microextraction of ultraviolet filters in environmental water

The environmental sources of benzophenones: Distribution, pretreatment, analysis and removal techniques

Benzophenones (BPs) have wide practical applications in real human life due to its presence in personal care products, UV-filters, drugs, food packaging bags, etc. It enters the wastewater by daily routine activities such as showering, impacting the whole aquatic system, then posing a threat to human health. Due to this fact, the monitoring and removal of BPs in the environment is quite important. In the past decade, various novel analytical and removal techniques have been developed for the determination of BPs in environmental samples including wastewater, municipal landfill leachate, sewage sludge, and aquatic plants. This review provides a critical summary and comparison of the available cutting-edge pretreatment, determination and removal techniques of BPs in environment. It also focuses on novel materials and techniques in keeping with the concept of "green chemistry", and describes on challenges associated with the analysis of BPs, removal technologies, suggesting future development strategies.

Polyaniline and Polyaniline-Based Materials as Sorbents in Solid-Phase Extraction Techniques

Polyaniline (PANI) is one of the best known and widely studied conducting polymers with multiple applications and unique physicochemical properties. Due to its porous structure and relatively high surface area as well as the affinity toward many analytes related to the ability to establish different types of interactions, PANI has a great potential as a sorbent in sample pretreatment before instrumental analyses. This study provides an overview of the applications of polyaniline and polyaniline composites as sorbents in sample preparation techniques based on solid-phase extraction, including conventional solid-phase extraction (SPE) and its modifications, solid-phase microextraction (SPME), dispersive solid-phase extraction (dSPE), magnetic solid-phase extraction (MSPE) and stir-bar sorptive extraction (SBSE). The utility of PANI-based sorbents in chromatography was also summarized. It has been shown that polyaniline is willingly combined with other components and PANI-based materials may be formed in a variety of shapes. Polyaniline alone and PANI-based composites were successfully applied for sample preparation before determination of various analytes, both metal ions and organic compounds, in different matrices such as environmental samples, food, human plasma, urine, and blood.

High-efficiency solid-phase microextraction performance of polypyrrole enhanced titania nanoparticles for sensitive determination of polar chlorophenols and triclosan in environmental water samples

In this work, a polypyrrole (PPy)/TiO₂ nanocomposite coating was fabricated by the direct electropolymerization of pyrrole on annealed TiO₂ nanoparticles and evaluated as a novel direct immersion solid phase microextraction (DI-SPME) fiber coating for extraction of trace amounts of pollutants in environmental water samples. The functionalized fiber is mechanically and chemically stable, and can be easily prepared in a highly reproducible manner. The effects of the pyrrole monomer concentration, polymerization voltage and polymerization time on the fiber were discussed. Surface morphological and compositional analyses revealed that the composite coating of nano polypyrrole and titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO₂NP_s) uniformly doped the Ti substrate. The as-fabricated fiber exhibited good extraction capability for phenolic compounds in combination with high performance liquid chromatography-UV detection (HPLC-UV). At the optimum SPME conditions, the calibration curves were linear (R² ≥ 0.9965). LODs and LOQs of less than 0.026 μg L⁻¹ and 0.09 μg L⁻¹ , respectively, were achieved, and RSDs were in the range 3.5–7.2%. The results obtained in this work suggest that PPy/TiO₂ is a promising coating material for future applications of SPME and related sample preparation techniques.

A PPy/TiO₂ nanocomposite coating was fabricated by direct electropolymerization of pyrrole on annealed TiO₂ nanoparticles and evaluated as a novel direct immersion solid phase microextraction fiber coating for the extraction of trace pollutants in water.

Novel copper sulfide doped titania nanoparticles as a robust fiber coating for solid-phase microextraction for determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

Immobilized TiO₂ nanoparticles modified by nanoscale CuS (CuS@TiO₂NPs) were successfully synthesized and used as fibers for solid-phase microextraction (SPME) for the determination of some polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in water samples. A novel fiber has been developed by postprecipitation of CuS coated the titania nanoparticles in situ grown on a titanium wire annealed at 550 °C in a nitrogen ambient atmosphere. Its morphology and surface properties were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry. It was connected to high performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet detector (HPLC-UV) equipment by replacing the sample loop of a six-port injection valve, building the online SPME-HPLC-UV system. Variables affecting extraction procedures, including desorption time, stirring speed, extraction temperature, extraction time and ionic strength were investigated and the parameters were optimized. The SPME fiber exhibits high selectivity for the five PAHs studied. The linear ranges varied between 0.15 μg L⁻¹ and 200 μg L⁻¹ with correlation coefficients ranging from 0.9913 to 0.9985. LODs and LOQs ranged from 0.02–0.04 μg L⁻¹ and 0.07–0.13 μg L⁻¹. RSDs for one fiber and fiber-to-fiber were in the range of 3.2–4.3% and 4.6–6.8%, respectively. Additionally, the fiber possessed advantages such as resistance to organic solvent, high mechanical strength and difficult breakage, making it have strong potential applications in the selective extraction of PAHs from complex water samples at trace levels.

Immobilized TiO₂ nanoparticles modified by nanoscale CuS (CuS@TiO₂NPs) were successfully synthesized and used as fibers for solid-phase microextraction (SPME) for the determination of some polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in water samples.

Use of Nanomaterial-Based (Micro)Extraction Techniques for the Determination of Cosmetic-Related Compounds

The high consumer demand for cosmetic products has caused the authorities and the industry to require rigorous analytical controls to assure their safety and efficacy. Thus, the determination of prohibited compounds that could be present at trace level due to unintended causes is increasingly important. Furthermore, some cosmetic ingredients can be percutaneously absorbed, further metabolized and eventually excreted or bioaccumulated. Either the parent compound and/or their metabolites can cause adverse health effects even at trace level. Moreover, due to the increasing use of cosmetics, some of their ingredients have reached the environment, where they are accumulated causing harmful effects in the flora and fauna at trace levels. To this regard, the development of sensitive analytical methods to determine these cosmetic-related compounds either for cosmetic control, for percutaneous absorption studies or for environmental surveillance monitoring is of high interest. In this sense, (micro)extraction techniques based on nanomaterials as extraction phase have attracted attention during the last years, since they allow to reach the desired selectivity. The aim of this review is to provide a compilation of those nanomaterial-based (micro)extraction techniques for the determination of cosmetic-related compounds in cosmetic, biological and/or environmental samples spanning from the first attempt in 2010 to the present.

Determination of Volatile Water Pollutants Using Cross-Linked Polymeric Ionic Liquid as Solid Phase Micro-Extraction Coatings

Ionic liquids found a wide application in catalysis and extraction due to their unique properties. Herein, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as the cross-linker and 1-vinyl-3- butylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate as functional monomer via thermally initiated free-radical polymerization was prepared as a novel copolymer solid phase micro-extraction (SPME) coating. A surface modified stainless-steel wire was implemented as the substrate. Factors affecting the extraction performances of the copolymer, including the molar ratio of monomers to cross-linkers, the amount of porogen agent, and polymerization time were evaluated and optimized. To evaluate the extraction performance, five commonly seen polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were taken as the analytical targets. The potential factors affecting extraction efficiency were optimized. The as-prepared SPME device, coupled with gas chromatography, was successfully applied for the determination of PAHs in water samples. The wide linear range, low detection limit, good reproducibility, selectivity, and excellent thermal stability indicate the promising application of the newly developed SPME fiber in environmental monitoring as well as in other samples having complex matrices.

Recent Applications and Newly Developed Strategies of Solid-Phase Microextraction in Contaminant Analysis: Through the Environment to Humans

The present review aims to describe the recent and most impactful applications in pollutant analysis using solid-phase microextraction (SPME) technology in environmental, food, and bio-clinical analysis. The covered papers were published in the last 5 years (2014–2019) thus providing the reader with information about the current state-of-the-art and the future potential directions of the research in pollutant monitoring using SPME. To this end, we revised the studies focused on the investigation of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), pesticides, and emerging pollutants (EPs) including personal care products (PPCPs), in different environmental, food, and bio-clinical matrices. We especially emphasized the role that SPME is having in contaminant surveys following the path that goes from the environment to humans passing through the food web. Besides, this review covers the last technological developments encompassing the use of novel extraction coatings (e.g., metal-organic frameworks, covalent organic frameworks, PDMS-overcoated fiber), geometries (e.g., Arrow-SPME, multiple monolithic fiber-SPME), approaches (e.g., vacuum and cold fiber SPME), and on-site devices. The applications of SPME hyphenated with ambient mass spectrometry have also been described.