Issue 54, 2016

Automated solid-phase extraction of organic pollutants using melamine–formaldehyde polymer-derived carbon foams

Abstract

The adsorptive potential of melamine–formaldehyde (MF) polymer derived elastic carbon foams (CF) has been explored for the first time for the extraction of low levels of environmental pollutants from water samples. The prepared CFs are obtained from the direct carbonization under nitrogen atmosphere of MF. CFs are used as flow-through supports and are implemented for automated solid-phase extraction using the sequential injection analysis technique. In comparison to other carbon-based materials, the use of monolithic networks based on CFs showed low-pressure and good mass transfer of the analytes, enabling the efficient extraction of bisphenol A, 4-tert-octylphenol and 4-n-nonylphenol from water samples prior to their quantification using liquid chromatography. Different experimental parameters such as selection of the eluent, sample and eluent volumes, and preconcentration and elution flow rates, were evaluated. Under the selected conditions, the detection limits were between 0.02 and 0.08 μg L−1 and the relative standard deviations (RSD, 10 μg L−1) ranged from 4.1–4.8%. Batch-to-batch reproducibility for three different carbon sponges was 5.8–6.3%. The obtained preconcentration factors were between 24 and 38, using a volume of 4 mL of sample. The CFs are chemically robust and flexible, and reusable at least 50 times. Different water samples such as well water, wastewater and leachates from a solid waste treatment plant were analyzed to investigate the capability of CFs for real sample analysis.

Graphical abstract: Automated solid-phase extraction of organic pollutants using melamine–formaldehyde polymer-derived carbon foams

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
30 Mar 2016
Accepted
11 May 2016
First published
12 May 2016
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

RSC Adv., 2016,6, 48558-48565

Automated solid-phase extraction of organic pollutants using melamine–formaldehyde polymer-derived carbon foams

M. Ghani, F. Maya and V. Cerdà, RSC Adv., 2016, 6, 48558 DOI: 10.1039/C6RA08230K

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements