Cyclodextrin-functionalized reduced graphene oxide as a fiber coating material for the solid-phase microextraction of some volatile aromatic compounds.

A novel solid phase microextraction fiber was prepared for the first time by using a sol-gel technique with hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin-functionalized reduced graphene oxide as the fiber coating material. The results verified that the β-cyclodextrin was successfully grafted onto the surface of reduced graphene oxide and the coating possessed a uniform folded and wrinkled structure. The performance of the solid phase microextraction fiber was evaluated by using it to extract nine volatile aromatic compounds from water samples before determination with gas chromatography and flame ionization detection. Some important experimental parameters that could affect the extraction efficiency such as the extraction time, extraction temperature, desorption temperature, desorption time, the volume of water sample solution, stirring rate, as well as ionic strength were optimized. The new method was validated to be effective for the trace analysis of some volatile aromatic compounds, with the limits of detection ranging from 2.0 to 8.0 ng/L. Single fiber repeatability and fiber-to-fiber reproducibility were in the range of 2.5-9.4 and 5.4-12.9%, respectively. The developed method was successfully applied to the analysis of three different water samples, and the recoveries of the method were in the range from 77.9 to 113.6% at spiking levels of 10, 100, and 1000 ng/L, respectively.