Developing a cube-like nanocomposite integrated into a polymer network as a highly porous and effective electrospun nanofiber for extracting trace quantities of opioid and analgesic drugs in biological fluids

Abstract

Nowadays, the excessive use of opioid and analgesic drugs (OAs) has raised a global concern due to their side effects and negative impacts. Hence, it is crucial to detect trace amounts of these drugs in biological samples. In this work, for the first time, a Zn–Ni–Co–OH metal–organic framework (MOF) functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) nanocomposite was integrated into a polyacrylonitrile mat and employed as a sensitive and effective nanoadsorbent to extract trace quantities of OAs from biological samples. Additionally, in order to save time, reduce operational work, and most importantly diminish the use of toxic organic solvents significantly, the pipette tip solid-phase microextraction technique was utilized as a green technique for the quantification of these drugs. Based on the characterization using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, the successful synthesis of nanofibers was confirmed. Moreover, the presence of the Zn–Ni–Co–OH MOF and multi-walled carbon nanotubes with a porous structure and abundant functional groups in the polymer substrate results in significantly enhanced efficiency for the extraction of target analytes. Under optimal conditions, the linearity for opioid and analgesic drugs was reported to be in the range of 1.5–1000.0 ng mL⁻¹. Furthermore, the identification limit and quantitative limit of the method were reported to be in the range of 0.5–0.9 and 1.5–3.0 ng mL⁻¹, respectively. Finally, the relative standard deviation (RSD) in the range of 5.7–6.9% (intra-day, n = 3) and 6.2–7.8% (inter-day, n = 3) and extraction recovery (ER%) in the range of 78–94% was achieved.