Polythiophene as a novel fiber coating for solid-phase microextraction

The efficiency of polythiophene (PTh) was investigated as a new fiber for solid-phase microextraction (SPME). The PTh film was directly electrodeposited on the surface of a stainless steel wire in boron trifluoride diethyl etherate (BFEE) solution using cyclic voltammetry (CV) technique. PTh fibers were used for the extraction of some organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) from water samples. The extracted analytes were transferred to an injection port of gas chromatography using a laboratory-designed SPME device. The results obtained prove the ability of PTh material as a new fiber for sampling of organic compounds from water samples. This behavior is due most probably to the granulated surface of PTh film, which produces large surface areas. In this work, the optimum conditions for the preparation and conditioning of fibers and the extraction of analytes from water samples were obtained. In the optimum conditions, the limit of detection of the proposed method is 0.5–10 ng L−1 for analysis of OCPs from aqueous samples, and the calibration graphs were linear in a concentration range of 10–10,000 ng L−1 (R2 > 0.982) for most of organochlorine pesticides. Single fiber repeatability and fiber-to-fiber reproducibility were less than 12 and 18% (n = 5), respectively. The PTh fiber was used to monitor the OCPs in real water samples, and the results compared favorably with the data determined by commercially available carbowax/divinylbenzene (CW/DVB) fiber.