A novel microextractor stick (polyaniline/zinc film/stainless steel) for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in water

A novel microextractor stick (MES) has been developed for the determination of trace amounts of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in water samples. The proposed MES was prepared by electrodepositing a Zn-film onto a stainless steel stick followed by a coating with polyaniline (PANI) sorptive layers. This PANI/Zn-film/stainless steel stick produced a large surface area, provided a high extraction efficiency (82.0 +/- 6.2% to 111.0 +/- 7.5% recovery) of spiked chrysene (Chry) and benzo(a)pyrene (BaP). This MES is cost-effective, easy to prepare, robust and provides a good stick-to-stick reproducibility (n = 10) with a relative standard deviation of less than 10%. The effect of various parameters on the efficiency of extraction of PAHs were optimized, including the extraction time, extraction and desorption stirring speeds, volume of desorption solvent and desorption time. Under the optimum conditions, the limit of detection (S/N >= 3) and limit of quantification (S/N >= 10) of both Chry and BaP were 0.05 and 0.12 mu g L-1, respectively. The developed MES was successfully applied to determine PAHs in real water samples.