Abstract:
In this study, electrospun nanofibers of polyacrylonitrile functionalized with graphene oxide (PAN/GO) were fabricated and applied as a sorbent in solid phase extraction in a disk format (SPE disk). Graphene oxide were synthesized by chemical oxidation of graphite powder via Hummers and Tour methods and were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). For electrospun PAN/GO nanofibers, the average diameters of fibers ranged from 117-147 nm and the surface area of PAN and PAN/GO nanofibers were ranged from 7.77-13.40 m2/g. Then, the PAN/GO nanofibers were assembled in a SPE disk format and applied for the extraction of epichlorohydrin (ECH) in water. The optimum condition was using 3.0 g of 7 %w/v PAN + 1.5 %w/v GO-T nanofibers as a sorbent, 100 mL of sample volume, and 0.30 mL of acetonitrile as desorption solvent. Under the optimal conditions, the linear range of ECH analysis was in the range 0.1-10 mg/L. The method detection limit (MDL) and method quantitation limit (MQL) were 0.45 and 1.38 µg/L, respectively. Finally, the sorbent was applied for the analysis of ECH in real water samples. The percentage recoveries of ECH at 5 µg/L spiked samples ranged from 100.0-103.6% which are comparable to other methods.