Sulfonated polyvinyl chloride fibers for cation-exchange microextraction

Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) fiber was derivatized by concentrated sulfuric acid to yield sulfonated PVC (PVC-SO3H). The PVC-SO3H fiber had dual properties as a sorbent, based on cation-exchange and hydrophobicity. In the present study, the novel fiber was used directly as an individual device for extraction purposes in the cation-exchange microextraction of anaesthetics, followed by high-performance liquid chromatography-UV analysis. The results demonstrated that this PVC-SO3H fiber-based microextraction afforded convenient operation and cost-effective application to basic analytes. The limits of detection for four anaesthetics ranged from 1.2 to 6.0 ng/mL. No carryover (because of its disposable usage), and no loss of sorbent phase (which normally occurs in stir-bar sorptive extraction) during extraction were observed.