Nanofiber polymers as novel sorbents for on-line solid phase extraction in chromatographic system: A comparison with monolithic reversed phase C18 sorbent

• Published in: Analytica chimica acta Vol. 1018; pp. 26 - 34
• Main Authors: Háková, Martina, Havlíková, Lucie Chocholoušová, Chvojka, Jiří, Švec, František, Solich, Petr, Šatínský, Dalibor
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 14-08-2018; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Chromatography; Density; Efficiency; Extraction; Fabrication; High performance liquid chromatography; Lipophilic; Liquid chromatography; Mats; Nanofiber polymers; Nanofibers; Nanostructured materials; On-line coupling; On-line SPE; On-line systems; Organic chemistry; Phase transitions; Polyamide resins; Polymers; Polystyrene; Polystyrene resins; Sample preparation; Solvent extraction processes; Sorbents; On-line SPE; LOD; PS; Nanofiber polymers; PA6; PTFE; On-line coupling; PCL; Extraction; Chromatography
• ISSN: 0003-2670; 1873-4324
• DOI: 10.1016/j.aca.2018.02.065

A novel application of nanofiber polymers in the wide area of a sample preparation techniques known as solid phase extraction has been studied. We demonstrated application of nanofibers as sorbents for use in a system including on-line extraction coupled with column-switching high performance liquid chromatography. Four types of nanofibers including polyamide 6 with two different surface densities, poly(ε-caprolactone), and polystyrene were tested. We found that three of them were very efficient extraction sorbents sufficiently stable for application in the on-line system. Our results confirmed that the extraction efficiency of the nanofibers depended on the type and chemistry of the spun polymer as well as on the fabrication process of the nanofibrous mats that affected their density, structure, surface density, and mechanical functionality. We also compared performance of all four nanofibers with a conventional monolithic reversed-phase C18 sorbent in terms of extraction efficiency using on-line solid-phase extraction-HPLC system. Polyamide 6 was found to be the best sorbent for lipophilic analytes with a retention and extraction efficiency for the target analytes comparable with that of the C18 monolith.
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•The nanofiber polymers showed to be promising sorbents for on-line solid phase extraction in chromatography systems.•The approach enabled using of on-line nanofibrous extraction of different insecticides.•Three different nanofibrous structures - polyamide 6, poly ε-caprolactone and polystyrene were tested.•The reusability of nanofibrous extraction pre-columns was verified.