A poly-dopamine based metal-organic framework coating of the type PDA-MIL-53(Fe) for ultrasound-assisted solid-phase microextraction of polychlorinated biphenyls prior to their determination by GC-MS

The authors describe an ultrasonic-assisted headspace method for solid phase micro-extraction (UA-HS-SPME) of 7 polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) with codes PCB28, PCB52, PCB101, PCB118, PCB138, PCB153 and PCB180. The coating is based on a poly-dopamine metal-organic framework [PDA-MIL-53(Fe)] on a stainless steel wire. The coating can be prepared and evenly deposited on the stainless fiber by dipping the PDA fiber into a solution of MIL-53(Fe). The assay is also environmentally friendly because water is used as the solvent. The effects of extraction time, addition of salts, pH value and power of ultrasonic power were optimized. The coating is found to possess a high selectivity and adsorption capacity for PCBs compared to commercial SPME fibers such as the divinylbenzene/carboxen/polydimethylsiloxane fibers. Following desorption, the PCBs were quantified by GC-MS. The detection limits are between 50 and 90 pg⋅g−1 of PCBs in soil. The fibers can be easily prepared, and the batch-to-batch reproducibility (RDS) is <10% (for n = 6). The fibers are inexpensive, re-usable and can be easily manipulated, and particularly well suited for screening polychlorinated biphenyls in soil.