Polypyrrole-coated capillary coupled to HPLC for in-tube solid-phase microextraction and analysis of aromatic...

In-tube solid-phase microextraction (SPME) based on a polypyrrole (PPY)-coated capillary was investigated for the extraction of aromatic compounds from aqueous solutions. The PPY-coated capillary was coupled on-line to HPLC that was programmed with an autosampler to achieve automated in-tube SPME and HPLC analysis. Three groups of aromatics, including both polar and nonpolar compounds, were examined. The results demonstrated that the PPY coating had a higher extraction efficiency than the currently used commercial capillary coatings, especially for polycyclic aromatic compounds and polar aromatics due to the increasing pi-pi interactions, interactions by polar functional groups, and hydrophobic interactions between the polymer and the analytes. In addition to the functional groups in the PPY coating, which contributed to the higher extraction efficiency and selectivity toward analytes, the coating's porous surface structure,which was revealed by electron microscopy experiments, provided a high surface area that allowed for high extraction efficiency. It was found that the extraction efficiency and selectivity could be tuned by changing the coating thickness. The preliminary study of the extraction mechanism indicated that analytes were extracted onto the PPY coating mainly by an adsorption mechanism. The method was used for the extraction and analysis of both polar and nonpolar aromatics in aqueous samples.