Polyacrylonitrile electrospun nanofibers as a new coating material for solid-phase microextraction: Application to the preconcentration and determination of phthalates in aqueous samples

In the present work, for the first attempt, polyacrylonitrile electrospun nanofiber was introduced as a new sorbent in solid phase microextraction method for determining phthalates in various water samples. Affecting parameters on the performance of SPME were optimized using response surface methodology (RSM) based on central composite design (CCD). Under optimum conditions, the method yielded a linear calibration curve ranging from 1-100 ng/ml with correlation coefficients (r2) higher than 0.998. The repeatability and reproducibility of the proposed method were between 3.8-4.3 and 7.7-8.5, respectively. Limits of detection were 0.05-1.0 ng/ml. The newly developed method was successfully applied for the determination of phthalates in various water samples and relative recoveries in these matrices were 93-105%.