Nanodiamonds assisted-cloud point extraction for the determination of fluoranthene in river water

Abstract

The classic cloud point extraction has been modified by the inclusion of nanodiamonds and applied to the extraction–preconcentration of fluoranthene from river water. The effects of ionic strength and surfactant concentration, process temperature, incubation time, nanoparticle type and concentration and elution conditions were investigated in depth. The effect of the carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) on the performance of the conventional cloud point scheme enabled the formation of two phases in a relatively short time and without temperature requirements. Experiments carried out under optimized conditions but in absence of nanoparticles were unsuccessful in terms of phase separation and consequently, the nanoparticles are indispensable to the analytical performance. The work developed here, confirms the versatility of the CNPs to be introduced in diverse sample treatment processes, resulting very interesting to investigate in each case their impact on the performance of the process. The application of the proposed method followed by fluorimetric detection enabled the determination of fluoranthene in spiked river water providing a good relative standard deviation (RSD) (6.6%, n = 3) and acceptable recovery values (>65%).