Application of ceramic/carbon composite as a novel coating for solid-phase microextraction

A ceramic/carbon composite was developed and applied as a novel coating for solid-phase microextraction (SPME). The ceramic/carbon coating exhibited several good properties for SPME, such as high extraction quantities and enhanced thermal and organic solvent stability. Under scanning electron microscopy (SEM), the tightly attached coating layer on stainless steel wire revealed excellent mechanical characteristics. Single fiber and fiber-to-fiber reproducibility were less than 6.9 and 9.5%, respectively. The effects of extraction and desorption parameters such as extraction time, stirring rate, ionic strength, and desorption temperature and desorption time on the extraction/desorption efficiency were investigated and optimized. Coupled to gas chromatography with a flame thermionic detector, the optimized SPME method was applied to the analysis of organophosphorus pesticides (OPPs) in aqueous samples. The calibration curves were linear from 0.05 to 200 ng mL−1 for fenchlorphos, pirimiphos-methyl, chlorpyrifos, ethion and from 0.2 to 200 ng mL−1 for quinalphos, and the limits of detection were between 5.2 and 34.6 ng L−1. The recovery of the OPPs spiked in real water samples at 5 ng mL−1 ranged from 86.2 to 103.4% and the relative standard deviations were less than 8.5%.