In situ hydrothermal growth of a zirconium-based porphyrinic metal-organic framework on stainless steel fibers for solid-phase microextraction of nitrated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

The authors describe the in-situ hydrothermal growth of a porphyrinic zirconium metal-organic framework (MOF), referred to as PCN-222(Zr), on stainless steel fibers. The PCN-222(Zr) is uniformly deposited on the fiber and displays exceptional thermal and chemical stability. The coated fiber was used for the solid-phase microextraction of nitrated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (NPAHs) in water sample prior to their quantitation by gas chromatography in combination with negative chemical ionization mass spectrometry. Limits of detection (S/N = 3) of 17 selected analytes ranged from 0.10 to 20 ng·L−1. Linear range was from 0.4 to 400 ng·L−1. Intra- and inter-day reproducibility values obtained from a single fiber (six replicates) ranged from 2.2–12.8% and 3.6–12.1%, respectively. Fiber-to-fiber reproducibility for six parallel fibers ranged from 3.3% to 10.3% under the same working conditions. The method was successfully applied to determine NPAHs in environmental water, atmospheric particulate matter (PM2.5), and soil samples. This work demonstrated a prominent prospect of this kinds of stable MOF for applications in extraction techniques.